It seems to me, as somebody who has fired people and seen alot more people fired, that some people just want to be fired. Why else would General Stanley A. McChrystal put himself in this position. We are loosing the war under McChrystal and he seems to know it but it would be very hard to quit. 

Why we are loosing the war is not important – not enough troops, wrong strategy, ineffective allies, not enough US civilian agency support, corrupt Afghani government, whatever – what is important is that McChrystal bought in to being able to win the war with what he had and, it seems, he can't. For all the knock on generals being stupid, being a general, in wartime, is a very competitive job and McChrystal is not making it.