Did McChrystal Want To Get Fired? Maybe.

The media, mainstream and alternative, are all abuzz about the probable firing of General Stanley McChrystal. He is accused of making statements that the Washington Post called “inflammatory.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that McChrystal of "made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment." It seems to me that someone making a significant mistake and exercising poor judgment should not be in charge of the war in Afghanistan. So why did this General do this? The easy answer is that he’s a loose cannon. I’ll suggest a different explanation.

Let’s say you are a General who’s been given charge of a war but that you don’t think you can win (We are losing the Afghan war. ) given the level of support from the Commander in Chief. Despite the claim that Obama gave McChrystal everything he wanted, that’s a breathtakingly big lie. Remember Obama’s dithering after McChrystal sent in his battle plan? In fact, McChrystal’s request for troops was scaled back by some 33%. Some are saying that the decisions to expose our troops to greater risk by rules of engagement that prevent artillery and air support to avoid civilian casualties are White House initiatives. And these orders are increasing casualties, getting our troops killed, and angering the troops on the ground.

So you see yourself a military commander being given the role of loser. And you don’t want to be saddled with that title. You don’t want to be known as the next General William Westmoreland who was the top US commander in Viet Nam and is given blame for the loss. There are only so many Robert E. Lees, and McChrystal has not won any battles like Chancellorsville or Fredericksburg.

How do you avoid being Westmorelanded? Well, the easiest way is to be openly disrespectful to your superiors. On Fox New Special Report Mara Liasson called McChrystal’s statements “breathtakingly dumb.” Do you not get to be a full General by being breathtakingly dumb. Not in today’s Army full of perfumed princes. So if you're McChrystal how do you get out?

You can’t quit (being called a quitter is worse than being a loser) . But you can get yourself fired.

And so he did.

Before you scoff, another top leader managed to get himself fired recently, to his benefit. I was reading MarketWatch today and ran across this interesting article: BP CEO may be trying to get fired, really

So why would an intelligent man (he has a Ph.D. and has worked at BP for 28 years) make such a bonehead move as to take the weekend off to go boating?

There's one explanation that makes sense. Yes, he's actually trying to get fired. It's not as crazy as it sounds; I have data to back it up.

I've looked through the fine print of Hayward's compensation terms at BP (BP 29.57, -0.11, -0.37%) , and I've found something remarkable: He doesn't have much financial incentive to stick around anymore. Indeed, he may do better if he manages to get himself fired.

If Hayward is kicked out by the board -- so long as it is not for actual malfeasance -- he'll get a payoff of about $1.5 million, or one year's basic salary. That's just the minimum. He'll probably get more.

In my long experience following British company boardrooms, rarely have I seen chief executives get only the minimum salary. Even when they were utterly incompetent and were absolutely loathed by everybody. Even when they actually quit, and so by rights should have received nothing at all.

If Hayward gets kicked out, he'll also walk away with a generous pension entitlement of nearly $900,000 a year.

To jaded American eyes, these figures may not seem that large. But that's only because we have become inured to the wholesale larceny of U.S. executive pay. We forget that the United States is to boardroom looting what Nigeria is to email scams -- the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. No one else comes close.

In the rest of the world, including Great Britain, a $1.5 million payoff and pension of $900,000 a year are considered pretty good compensation for getting fired

Tony Hayward was not interested in public humiliation for the benefit of the cretins on Congress.  No one, in my opinion, can be paid enough to do that.

If you can’t simply walk away from a task that you can’t accomplish – and let’s face it, neither Hayward or McChrystal are anything other than sacrificial lambs being led to the slaughter – get someone to fire you.  Hayward did it by going to a sailboat race.  McChrystal did it in an interview with Rolling Stone.

I would hate to be a General with a record for winning wars right now. Lots of top brass are looking through their past to see if they can feel reporters dirt on themselves so they won’t be Obama’s next scapegoat.

For McChrystal, mission accomplished.