McCHRYSTAL IN TROUBLE !

[GUNNER]

Kerry Calls For Cool Reaction

US Senator John Kerry pleaded Tuesday for a "cool and calm" reaction to scathing comments from the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, citing the urgency of the war effort.

"The top priority is our mission in Afghanistan and our ability to proceed forward competently," Kerry said, adding that it would be up to President Barack Obama to decide whether to replace the commander.

Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had spoken to the general by telephone and "emphasized to him that I think, obviously, those are comments that he's going to have to deal with."

"My impression is that all of us would be best served by backing off, staying cool and calm," in response to the general's sharp, personal criticisms of national security officials in Washington from Obama on down, he said.

But the senator openly praised McChrystal despite the explosive article in Rolling Stone magazine in which the general openly criticized Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, and an unnamed aide slammed Kerry himself.

"I have enormous respect for General McChrystal, I think he's a terrific soldier," said Kerry. McChrystal also told the magazine that he felt "betrayed" by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in a White House debate over war strategy last year.

In an interview with MSNBC television, Kerry called McChrystal's comments "certainly a mistake" and said "there's no question that it's poor judgment on the part of both the general and some of his staff."

"But I think that, you know, the real question is, will it affect his ability to continue to have a relationship with the president and his top staff? That's between them," said the lawmaker.

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Buck McKeon, agreed, saying: "This is unfortunate, but it should not detract us from our real goal of working together to defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban."

But "it was appropriate that General McChrystal issued an apology," McKeon said in a statement.

 

[arsenal_gooner]

if anyone would like to read the full article in the rolling stones magazine. its here on the msnbc website

Stanley McChrystal: The runaway general - Military- msnbc.com

 

[GUNNER]

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2010 (AFP) - The NATO commander in Afghanistan made "a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment" in his remarks in a magazine interview, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

He called for "unity of purpose" between military and civilian leaders and said he had "recalled" General Stanley McChrystal to Washington to discuss the matter, but did not say if he would sack the commander.

 

[GUNNER]

GENERAL STANLEY McCHRYSTAL: PROFILE

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2010 (AFP) - General Stanley McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, made his name in the secret world of special operations but has proved fearless of publicity in waging an unpopular, unconventional war.

Now, the 57-year-old McChrystal faces what could be a career-ending controversy over a magazine profile that portrays him as a man almost as much at war with President Barack Obama's White House as with the Taliban.

Published by Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General" quotes McChrystal's aides as mocking Vice President Jose Biden, calling the president's national security adviser "a clown," and saying McChrystal was "disappointed" in Obama after their first meeting in the Oval Office.

McChrystal himself is quoted as saying he felt "betrayed" by US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a former commander in Afghanistan who raised pointed objections to his onetime subordinate's war strategy in a memo leaked to the New York Times.
The White House has summoned him to Washington to explain.

"I extend my sincerest apology for this profile," McChrystal said in a statement from Kabul. "It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened."
If he is dismissed, as many expect, it would be one of the highest profile firings of a wartime commander since president Harry Truman sacked General Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War.

Surprisingly, for a man whose army career was forged in the normally hermetic world of top secret US special operations, McChrystal has not been a stranger to high profile controversies.

Brilliant, focused and fanatically disciplined, he was made the top commander in Afghanistan in June 2009 after his predecessor, General David McKiernan, was unceremoniously pushed aside as too old school for what was rapidly becoming another losing war in the "graveyard of empires."

Chosen to bring new ideas about counter-insurgency warfare to the fight, McChrystal brought in outside experts for advice and devised a new strategy by September that called for an additional 40,000 troops, warning that anything less risked "mission failure."

That was even more troops than his predecessor had demanded, and it set off a storm within the new administration, fearful of being drawn into another quagmire just as it was moving to extricate US forces from Iraq.

Obama ordered his own months-long strategy review.

Biden and others in the administration resisted the general's plan for a comprehensive counter-insurgency strategy, advocating a smaller force on the ground and greater reliance on drones to go after Al-Qaeda in its Pakistani havens.
In the end, Obama gave his general most of what he asked for.

But McChrystal told Rolling Stone, "I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position." There were public signs of his unhappiness.

He complained in a CBS 60 Minutes interview in September, that he had spoken to Obama just once in the past 70 days. At an event in London in October, McChrystal was asked whether Biden's alternative would work, he said: "The short answer is no. A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a short-sighted strategy." The remark angered the White House, which is reported in published accounts of the period to have seen it as a bid by the military brass to override their civilian bosses.

McChrystal came to Afghanistan after a stint as director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
But he owed his ascent to the Afghan command to a brilliant success as the Joint Special Operations Commander, where he transformed the hunt for Al-Qaeda in Iraq to a deadly efficient high tech operation, much of which remains classified.

He has been credited with running the successful 2006 operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and with smashing Al-Qaeda and Iranian-backed cells in 2007 and 2008. But special forces have also been accused of detainee abuses under McChrystal's command. Questions over that issue last year reportedly held up his appointment to his current post.

He was also found "accountable" for making inaccurate statements in the awarding of a Silver Star for Army Ranger Pat Tillman, an ex-American football star who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

The son of a general and a graduate of West Point, McChrystal entered the army in 1976. He has had a stellar military career with key commands interspersed with time off for study at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Affairs, and the Naval War College.

He was the chief of staff of the combined joint task force that conducted "Operation Enduring Freedom," the US-backed campaign that ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in late 2001.

 

[GUNNER]

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2010 (AFP) - The White House said Tuesday that the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, made an "enormous mistake" in his remarks in a magazine interview and refused to rule out firing him.

"Without a doubt, General McChrystal, as Secretary Gates has said, has made an enormous mistake," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, adding that President Barack Obama would speak to the general about it Wednesday.

Gibbs would not say whether McChrystal would be fired, but said "all options are on the table."

President Barack Obama was "angry" at scathing criticism by his top military commander in Afghanistan, which he believed distracted from the nation's war mission, a US official said Tuesday.

"He was angry," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said tersely, describing how Obama reacted when he handed him the explosive Rolling Stone magazine article late Monday.

McChrystal and his aides made withering comments about Obama, the nation's commander-in-chief, as well as Vice President Joe Biden and other senior White House officials in the article.

The White House has now summoned him back from Afghanistan for talks on Wednesday.

 

[GUNNER]

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2010 (AFP) - The future of the US military commander in Afghanistan hung in the balance Tuesday over an explosive interview in which he and top aides mocked and criticized the Obama administration.

General Stanley McChrystal was summoned to the White House on Wednesday to explain himself as President Barack Obama considered whether firing the general could carry too high a cost for the struggling Afghan war effort.

The unflattering article in Rolling Stone magazine exacerbated lingering tensions between McChrystal and the White House at a pivotal moment as the US deploys thousands more troops to the bloody war now in its ninth year.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama was "angry" when he read the article late Monday, and refused to rule out that the commander-in-chief would fire McChrystal for what amounted to a blatant act of insubordination.

"General McChrystal has fought bravely on behalf of this country for a long time. Nobody could or should take that away from him, and nobody will," Gibbs said."But there has clearly been an enormous mistake in judgment to which he's going to have to answer to."

After issuing a groveling apology, McChrystal rushed back from Kabul to attend in person Wednesday's monthly war briefing -- normally a video-conference that he hooks up to from his Afghan headquarters.

"I have recalled General McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a terse statement. "I believe that General McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case."

In the profile entitled "The Runaway General," McChrystal aides mock Vice President Jose Biden, call the president's national security adviser "a clown," and say the general was "disappointed" by his first meeting with Obama.

McChrystal himself is quoted as saying he felt "betrayed" by US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, a former commander in Afghanistan who raised pointed objections to his onetime subordinate's war strategy.

An unnamed McChrystal adviser says in the article that the general came away unimpressed after meeting with Obama in the Oval Office a year ago.

"It was a 10-minute photo op," the general's adviser says. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged."

Leaving McChrystal with yet more explaining to do when he meets Obama face-to-face on Wednesday, the article quotes sources familiar with the meeting as saying he thought the president looked "uncomfortable and intimidated."

McChrystal issued a statement late Monday apologizing for his remarks and one of his media officers, a civilian, has already resigned over the episode.

But the fallout is unlikely to stop there.

"We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world," said Gates. "Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose."

"The magnitude and graveness of this mistake are profound," said Gibbs.

McChrystal already received a dressing down from Obama last year over his remarks at a London conference in which he appeared to reject Biden's argument in favor of fewer troops in Afghanistan.

In the article McChrystal pretended to rehearse an answer to questions referring to the vice president.

"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?' McChrystal says with a laugh. 'Who's that?'" the article quotes him as saying.
"'Biden?' suggests a top adviser. 'Did you say: Bite Me?'"

In Kabul, Eikenberry said through a spokeswoman that he remains "fully committed" to working with McChrystal, despite the scathing criticism.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen also backed McChrystal, with his spokesman saying: "The Rolling Stone article is rather unfortunate, but it is just an article.

"We are in the middle of a very real conflict, and the Secretary General has full confidence in General McChrystal as the NATO commander, and in his strategy."

 

[gambit]

Methinks there is enough news posting about this already. There is nothing new in them. All these news sources do is merely duplicate 'reporting' from the same source. See if there are any genuine analysis instead.

 

[ajpirzada]

so anyone who stays on ground in afghanistan looses his line with Whitehouse. so i guess pakistanis blaming US for security blunders are not wrong at all.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

I personally feel that this article should not have been published, The guy has an awesome track record and he was put in the most difficult seat. This war was so demanding that provided the resources No body could have attained the given objectives. Now look how much disgracefully they all ended up..
Just imagine of the morale of the deployed troops after there onfeild commander is being disgraced infront of them so badly. Obama admin should have acted in maturity and shouldnt have summoned him like this. Even if they had to bash him it should have been done behind close doors. Such things affect the overall morale of the troops fighting on ground.
Morever owing to facts that rifts existed btw Eckinbery and Macrystal and some other stoogs in Obama admin , this war should have been centralized by making either of them the King of the jungle.Too many cooks spoiled the feast.

Personally feel for the cost which American,Afghan and Pakistani people had to pay for this wrong and yet costly adventure of ambitious and arrogant stoogs in the US political and top Millitery establishment.

 

[mehru]

I personally feel that this article should not have been published, The guy has an awesome track record and he was put in the most difficult seat. This war was so demanding that provided the resources No body could have attained the given objectives. Now look how much disgracefully they all ended up..
Just imagine of the morale of the deployed troops after there onfeild commander is being disgraced infront of them so badly. Obama admin should have acted in maturity and shouldnt have summoned him like this. Even if they had to bash him it should have been done behind close doors. Such things affect the overall morale of the troops fighting on ground.
Morever owing to facts that rifts existed btw Eckinbery and Macrystal and some other stoogs in Obama admin , this war should have been centralized by making either of them the King of the jungle.Too many cooks spoiled the feast.

Personally feel for the cost which American,Afghan and Pakistani people had to pay for this wrong and yet costly adventure of ambitious and arrogant stoogs in the US political and top Millitery establishment.

Agreed. There was no need to disgrace him like that however what he said was priceless.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones is described by a McChrystal aide as a “clown” stuck in 1985.

Others aides joked about Biden’s last name as sounding like “Bite me” since Biden opposed the surge.

 

[TechLahore]

This is a disaster. We really don't need more complications marring the war in Afghanistan. There is enough doubt about the success of the Marjah campaign and plenty of second-guessing of the Kandahar operation in the press. The last thing we needed was the man behind both operations to be put on the mat for what is undoubtedly a severe case of verbal diarrhea.

I think the White House needs to whip the general behind closed doors and keep him on a short leash from here on but maintain a stiff upper lip and somehow get through this nonsense without firing him. 2011 and the withdrawal is not too far away. Get through the remaining time somehow and let's end this disastrous chapter once and for all... ISAF/NATO military presence in Afghanistan has basically been a flop.

One had hoped NATO presence would allow for a democratic, more organized and progressive Afghanistan to emerge, but none of that has happened. We have the same warlords, an election rigging, drug dealing corrupt former UNOCAL employee as President and the Taliban ruling the countryside. One had hoped the Taliban would be destroyed and their support base would be approached with social and developmental projects to alienate them from the extremists, but none of that has happened. Instead of expanding outposts and holding more territory, NATO has contracted its hold and secure presence. Karzai and his brother, meanwhile, have continued corruption at a level that will make it easy for the Taliban to win hearts and minds. One had hoped that a new day would dawn in Afghanistan with some semblance of a sustainable stability, an end to poppy cultivation, gun running and warlordism, but none of that has happened.

Sadly, the last 10 years will be undone in 10 months once ISAF leaves. I just hope the US diverts a fair percentage of its Afghanistan military spend on social programs to at least retain a hope in hell of keeping Afghanistan slightly stable... anything less and we will be back to 1999.

 

[TechLahore]

And here we go... according to CNN, McChrystal has resigned:


BREAKING NEWS: Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, an unnamed source told Time magazine.

 

[sparklingway]

BREAKING NEWS: Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his resignation, an unnamed source told Time magazine.

Rolling stone offered him a sword to behead himself and then watched his head roll.

Besides Huffington Post among many calling for his resignation (or being fired), there was a good post last night on a blog where many ex-soldiers post:-

I am surprised that some of you don't understand what is at stake in McChrystal's offense. It is really quite simple. The principle has always been in this country that the federal military is an instrument of state policy. Our tradition is designed to prevent the emergence of "Caesarism" as a method of picking leaders or determining basic national policy. To maintain that principle Macarthur was fired on the advice of George Marshall. What McChrystal has done is to challenge President Obama. Everyone in the armed forces knows that. The notion has emerged in the COIN community that Obama is weak and can be bullied into removing the time restriction that he has placed on the Afghanistan COIN campaign plan that he adopted at their urging last year. Macarthur implicitly threatened both Roosevelt and Truman with the possibility that he would mobilize Republican politicos against them. The COIN crowd think that the same method can be used against this president. They have been willing to bet that he is no Truman and that Gates and Clinton do not have Marshall's strength. The effrontery of the deed in feeding this reporter all this material without placing it off the record is clearly a challenge to civilian control of policy.

McChrystal must be fired. Then he should be put on the retired list in his permanent grade with no end of career award. Then some thought should be given to the clear violation here of Article 88 of UCMJ.

Active duty military people are free to express their opinions to their superiors. They are not and should not be free to use the press against the civilian government.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_...6/see-the-mcchrystal-post-on-30-may-2010.html

 

[Meengla]

For a complicated, almost a lost-cause war like in Afghanistan a military commandor may be allowed to 'vent out' some frustration in a casual social settings over some drinks.
Gees! They are not robots. They are human beings and can express themselves 'off the record' sometime.
The Rolling Stone journalist should not have published these reports. It is not good journalism.
My opinion is that Obama will look bad if he fires McC over this. A reprimand, perhaps, but firing now when the morale is getting lower about the chances of a 'victory' in Afghanistan will not be good for American goals in the region.

PS. McC is also reported to have stressed to his soldiers to minimize civilian-casualties. Personally, to me he sounds like a competent and thoughtful warrior. BUT...civilian authority may never be challenged without at least some censure.

 

[BATMAN]

The meetings with our generals bore some fruit. Now they are expressing political opinion and mocking and defying state officials.

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