No, a reason to question his judgement. Since he's already proven to have extremely questionable judgement, it's well within the bounds to question whether this appointment is any good.
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Most of the questions are, why appoint a retired General, when there are so many qualified, and active. Conclusion, it's political.
How much "Combat experience" do you guys think anyone above company command actually sees? He's reasonably well-qualified on that, and the CENTCOM J3 experience is pretty relevant.
The part I have a problem with is the same thing that made the military sources choke: You only bring back a retired guy because you don't have anyone on the active list able to fill the role, which in a time where we are talking about casing the colors of almost 1/3 of the active component combat brigades, is just fucking impossible.
See below.
Agreed. It's a slap in the face to all of the other four-stars who would have been extremely effective in command of NATO. This is especially obvious after Obama's firing of GEN McChrystal over comments made by his staffers in a spurious leftist music rag. The message to the chain of command is that politics trumps all else.