Thomas: Loose lips sink generals - and wars

The World War II slogan "Loose lips sink ships," which was intended to encourage Americans to keep quiet about any information pertaining to that war, could also apply to modern generals and their staffs.

The mistake made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan whose resignation was accepted Wednesday by President Obama, was not indulging in - and allowing his aides to indulge in - locker room guy talk. His "mistake in judgment" was allowing a writer for the far-left, anti-war magazine Rolling Stone apparently unrestricted and prolonged access to him and his aides.

Rich Galen was a press secretary to former Vice President Dan Quayle when he was a congressman and senator, and to Newt Gingrich when he was House Republican Whip. In 1996, Galen then became the communications director of Speaker Gingrich's political office. On his "Mullings" blog, he writes of his "excellent association with reporters" because he says he adhered to three rules: never selling out his boss to curry favor with the press; never lying to the press to protect his boss; and when he didn't know an answer, saying he didn't know.

McChrystal obviously disregarded Galen's first rule. Galen thinks McChrystal deserved to be fired, even though only one rather innocuous quote was attributed to him in the Rolling Stone article. The rest are more serious comments by unnamed aides. The bigger question is: Who set up this interview and what was that person's motive? When will that person be fired?

McChrystal's predicament is partially about the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which spells out insubordination as a firing offense. Mostly, though, it is about whether this war is winnable and the consequences for the United States and Afghanistan if it is not.

America's failure to win the Vietnam War did not bring the consequences many had predicted, except to the Vietnamese. Today, capitalism seems to be growing in Vietnam, though other freedoms remain restricted.

Losing in Afghanis

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