McCHRYSTAL IN TROUBLE !

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2010 (AFP) - Afghan war General Stanley McChrystal left the White House after a dressing down from President Barack Obama Wednesday, with speculation rife he will be fired for mocking the US national security team.

The daring career soldier was abruptly ordered to leave the war zone and show up at the White House to explain remarks in a stunning magazine interview in which he criticized the president and his war cabinet.

McChrystal climbed into a dark mini van and drove away from the White House, less than an hour before he was due to attend a meeting of Obama's war cabinet in the secure White House Situation Room.

It was not clear if he planned to return and there was no immediate word on the outcome of the meeting. Aides did not immediately say when Obama would comment publicly on the situation.

McChrystal, who also commands NATO forces in Afghanistan, first meet Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon, then went to see Obama, in what was likely an awkward meeting, which a White House aide said last 31 minutes.

Other news reports said the general has already offered his resignation.

McChrystal won some backing in Europe, where nations participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said that this was no time for a change of command in the war against the Taliban.

"He is a guarantor of the new strategy in Afghanistan," German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg told German television. "It is important for us to have stability within NATO structures."

 

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McCHRYSTAL EFFECT


LONDON - British operations in southern Afghanistan show signs of progress, partly due to the leadership of embattled US General Stanley McChrystal, a study from a leading military think-tank said Wednesday.

The findings were published on the day McChrystal went to the White House for a crunch meeting with President Barack Obama after a magazine interview in which he criticised the president and his war cabinet.

There is intense speculation that McChrystal, who commands NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, could even be forced to quit.

In a briefing note for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Professor Theo Farrell of King's College London looked at operations by the British-led Task Force Helmand in north Nad-e-Ali in southern Afghanistan as part of Operation Moshtarak, a major anti-Taliban offensive launched in February.

"Operation Moshtarak demonstrates that in southern Afghanistan, ISAF is practising what it preaches -- a political-led, population-centric approach to counter-insurgency that is generally well integrated with Afghan national security forces," the study said.

"It also shows how 'the McChrystal effect' -- the reinvigoration of ISAF's campaign under clear strategic direction -- has been amplified in the south by a beefed-up Regional Command (South)".

It added that McChrystal's attempts to change emphasis in this way "has been successful".

But the study contrasted such successes with the story in the Marjah area, where it said "the rapid building of local trust and establishment of governance is not realistic".

 

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President Obama relieves General Stanley McChrystal of Afghan Command over comments in Rolling Stone magazine report: BBC

 

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2010 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama accepted the resignation of Afghan war commander General Stanley McChrystal Wednesday and asked Iraq war hero General David Petraeus to replace him, a US official said.

 

[M8R]

Well General David Petraeus is a good choice.He is a good general and has praised Pakistan Army several times during senate hearings.So it's good thing for Pakistan.He is also a strong contender for future US CJCOS Seat.

 

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2010 (AFP) - President Barack Obama warned Wednesday he would not tolerate division in his administration over Afghanistan after replacing General Stanley McChrystal over a stinging magazine interview.

Obama, in a statement at the White House, said he had accepted the Afghan war general's resignation with regret, but needed to ensure the integrity of civilian control over the military and a unified push to win the war.

"As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe that it is the right decision for our national security," Obama said, hours after holding a 31 minute with the general at the White House.

"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general."

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

whose the unhappy person in the pic..

 

[xenia]

^karzai!
uncle mc chrystal!

 

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McChrystal sacking exposes cracks in US

By Daniel Dombey in Washington

Published: June 23 2010 18:55 | Last updated: June 23 2010 18:55

This week’s storm over Gen Stanley McChrystal, who was sacked on Wednesday, has thrown new light on one of the biggest cracks in Barack Obama’s administration.

While Washington prides itself on the cohesion and collegiality of its national security team, on the single biggest national security issue – Afghanistan – the impression given is very different.

Ironically, the divisions are less between the biggest players in the US than among those charged with implementing the policy on the ground. Robert Gates, defence secretary, and Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, have forged an enduring alliance, but General McChrystal, Karl Eikenberry, ambassador to Kabul, and Richard Holbrooke, the special representative to the region, have experienced far more rocky relations.

“If you think any group of strong effective policymakers are going to all play along nicely together, that might be suitable social instruction for a kindergarten, but not in these circumstances,” says Antony Cordesman, a prominent Washington analyst and former adviser to Gen McChrystal.

Against a backdrop of rising scepticism in the US, Mr Cordesman says the administration has made the first genuine effort to bring together all strands of policymaking since the Afghan war began and that in such a difficult environment it will take time to succeed.

Mr Holbrooke’s hard-charging style is legendary in Washington and in a letter sent earlier this year James Jones, US national security adviser, appeared to side with Mr Eikenberry against him.

Meanwhile, Mr Eikenberry’s doubts about US strategy and its reliance on Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, were aired in a leaked memo that left Gen McChrystal feeling, in his own words, “betrayed”.

But it is Gen McChrystal who has been most at odds with his colleagues – as is seen by the swipes by him and his aides in this week’s Rolling Stone article against everyone from Joe Biden, US vice-president, to Senator John McCain.

This is partly because, say some officials, his peculiar mixture of professional arrogance and political naivete. With a background in the secretive special forces, Gen McChrystal lacks the political touch of his friend and superior Gen David Petraeus.

Last December, when he came to Washington to testify in favour of Mr Obama’s Afghan strategy, Gen McChrystal found it hard to acknowledge any main way in which his strategy had been affected by the months-long review run by the president.

While the White House dropped medium-term targets of increasing the Afghan army and police to a total strength of 400,000 – it feared they were unrealistic – Gen McChrystal made clear he was sticking to those goals. He also continued to talk of “defeating” the Taliban, language that was more uncompromising than the administration preferred.

His position was particularly exposed, precisely because Mr Obama’s strategy, unveiled at a speech at West Point military academy, was ultimately so influenced by the plans Gen McChrystal drew up, which had been leaked in an apparent – and seemingly successful – effort to put pressure on the administration.

Mr Obama had sought to appeal to both pro-and anti-war constituencies in his West Point speech, in which he announced a 30,000-strong surge and plans to begin withdrawing in July 2011. But since then neither side has been content, with Mr McCain labelling the July 2011 date as unrealistic and Democrats voicing fears about the readiness of Afghan forces.

The military, in the shape of Gen Petraeus, has also voiced disquiet about inflexible timelines. But, in truth, officials from Mr Obama down issued a host of qualifications about the July 2011 date, indicating that at that time there may be only a token handover to Afghan forces in some parts of the country and that any withdrawal will be “conditions based”.

On the broad thrust of strategy, there is no big rift with Gen McChrystal, who only last week emphasised that the key to success lay in institution-building in Afghanistan. But as the events of this week have shown, strategy is one thing; team-work and timetables are quite another.

FT.com / Asia-Pacific / Afghanistan - McChrystal sacking exposes cracks in US

 

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WASHINGTON, June 23, 2010 (AFP) -

US General Stanley McChrystal said Wednesday he resigned as commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan out of a commitment to troops and "to see the mission succeed."

"This morning the president accepted my resignation as commander of US and NATO coalition Forces in Afghanistan," McChrystal said in a statement issued shortly after President Barack Obama announced he was replacing the general.

"I strongly support the president's strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people," he said.

"It was out of respect for this commitment -- and a desire to see the mission succeed -- that I tendered my resignation."

The four-star general made no mention of the magazine article that created an uproar this week, in which he and his aides derided top administration officials and spoke dismissively of Obama.

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Poor gut all his brightest efforts and outstanding service ended up so badly.. i think the guys amongst his aides will also be sliced..!!!

 

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New General, Same Problem for Obama in Afghanistan

Barack Obama, as candidate and president, in effect created the I.E.D. known as Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Now, that improvised explosive device has blown up in the midst of the Obama presidency. The damage is severe, if not crippling.

By relieving McChrystal of command and replacing him with Gen. David Petraeus, the president sought to shield himself from the blast. "This is a change in personnel, but it's not a change in policy," he said from the Rose Garden on Wednesday.
But by focusing his military answer to Islamist extremism on the ungovernable and impenetrable mountains of Afghanistan, Obama made the rise of a man like McChrystal not only possible, but inevitable.

An impossible-to-govern country, infested for millennia with hard-eyed tribal warriors, gave rise to an impossible-to-govern American general, surrounded by an inner circle of hard-eyed tribal warriors.

To paraphrase screenwriter David Mamet, in McChrystal, in Afghanistan, we became what we beheld.

The war in Afghanistan, now the longest in the nation’s history, has cost 1,000 American lives and soon will have cost $1 trillion . And yet we have not defeated let alone eradicated the militant, Islamist Taliban, which harbored and encouraged the terrorists who attacked on September 11, 2001.

In the meantime, voters have turned against the war. In the first months of his presidency, Obama’s policy of focusing militarily on Afghanistan had wide support. By a 56-41 percent margin, Americans said that the war there was worth fighting.

Now, that sentiment is reversed in the latest sample of the same Washington Post poll: by a 53-44 percent margin, voters say the war is NOT worth fighting.

As a candidate for president, Obama declared that the war in Iraq was a catastrophic and unnecessary “war of choice,” but that Afghanistan was the real, indispensible and pivotal “war of necessity.”

He evidently believed this – even though he had never been to Afghanistan, knew little about military history and knew little about the region aside from a college-year trip through Pakistan in 1981 and a quick trip as a junior senator to Iraq in 2006.

But candidate Obama also had a political motive: to outflank the hawkish Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, and to prove to the rest of the country that he yearned to defeat Muslim extremists and that he was applying his considerable intellect to the role of commander-in-chief.

As president, Obama had to make good on his promise. And, fatefully, he chose as McChrystal’s “counterinsurgency” theory of how to eradicate the Taliban. It stresses combining overwhelming on-the-ground force with an amped-up effort to win hearts and minds – and gives the Pentagon the main role in military, diplomatic and political matters.

In essence, by choosing McChrystal’s way, the president was giving even more power to a Pen-tagon that this year is expected to have at least a $700 billion budget – more than ten times that of the State Department.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gone along with the project, but Vice President Joe Biden – who might have been Secretary of State had the cards fallen in a slightly different way—has not. Divisions within the administration grow by the day.

And Obama also is providing over an unpopular war and a fractured administration at a critical time on the real battlefield. The long-planned and oft-delayed siege of Kandahar was supposed to start soon – with McChrystal in charge – but has been delayed. It has been touted as the pivotal battle in a pivotal war.

But at the same time, the president remains publicly committed to beginning the withdrawal of the 94,000 American troops in Afghanistan by July 2011.

Who can win in Kandahar so that we can begin to leave and America will be rid of the Taliban and its allies?

That is–or was supposed to be–Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

New General, Same Problem for Obama in Afghanistan - Newsweek

 

[H2O3C4Nitrogen]

Such outstanding career ended so badly, well folks thats what afghanistan can do to you..!!!

 

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Obama turfs lead U.S. general in Afghanistan

Gen. Stanley McChrystal arrives at the White House in Washington for a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday, June 23, 2010. (AP / Evan Vucci)


U.S. President Barack Obama has fired his top general in Afghanistan, following a controversial magazine interview that saw Stanley McChrystal criticize his colleagues and senior White House staff.

At an afternoon press conference, Obama said it was with "considerable regret" that he chose to relieve McChrystal of his duties.

The U.S. president also said that the remarks McChrystal made to Rolling Stone "does not meet the standard that should be set by a standing general."

McChrystal had been summoned to Washington remarks he made to Rolling Stone magazine were made public.

Prior to the general's firing, Obama had made it clear that the 55-year-old McChrystal had shown "poor judgment" and that he might be removed from his position. The Associated Press reported that McChrystal had brought his resignation with him in the event he was fired.

Experts say that whatever choice Obama made -- whether keeping or firing McChrystal -- was going to be troublesome.

Obama has nominated U.S. Gen. David Petraeus to take McChrystal's place as head of the ISAF force in Afghanistan.

Earlier Wednesday, Harlan Ullman, a media commentator and former naval officer, said Obama was facing a series of choices "ranking between bad and worse."

Afghan officials had urged Obama not to turf McChrystal, citing his experience in Afghanistan and the progress made under his watch.

"The president believes that we are in a very sensitive juncture in the partnership, in the war on terror and in the process of bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan, and any gap in this process will not be helpful," Waheed Omar, a spokesperson for Afghan

President Hamid Karzai, told reporters Wednesday.

"We hope there is not a change of leadership of the international forces here in Afghanistan and that we continue to partner with Gen. McChrystal."

CTV Edmonton - Obama turfs lead U.S. general in Afghanistan - CTV News

 

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President Obama sacks General McChrystal

Washington: US President Barack Obama has accepted General Stanley McChrystal's resignation as the top US Commander in Afghanistan and is replacing him with General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command.

Obama said he has accepted the resignation of Gen McChrystal with regret, but is certain that it is the right decision for US national security and the future of the US mission in Afghanistan.

Speaking in the Rose Garden, Obama said McChrystal's biting comments about the President and his aides in a magazine article did not meet the standards of conduct for a commanding General.

McChrystal was pushed out over his blistering remarks about administration officials quoted in a magazine interview.

Obama named General David Petraeus to assume McChrystal's role as the top US commander in Afghanistan. He says the move will allow the US to maintain leadership and momentum in the war.

Obama made the announcement aftert a private meeting with McChrystal and a separate meeting of his national security staff.

Obama sacks General McChrystal, Petraeus picked to lead Afghanistan