General Stanley McChrystal Optimistic on Afghanistan

By ⋅ January 21, 2013 ⋅ Post a comment
McChrystal meets with the President in the Oval Office of the White House in 2009. (Photo: The White House)

McChrystal meets with the President in the Oval Office of the White House in 2009. (Photo: The White House)

As Barack Obama formally begins his second term, most eyes are on the domestic agenda.

But the nation is still at war in Afghanistan, just as it was four years ago.

Some might say not much has changed.

Early in his first term, in 2009, the President tried to turn the conflict around by ordering a troop surge into Afghanistan.

Stanley McChrystal was the general in charge then, appointed by President Obama himself.

McChrystal had to resign in 2010, after a Rolling Stone profile of him was published, in which his staff was quoted mocking senior administration officials.

McChrystal now has a memoir out, called “My Share of the Task.”

He says the surge changed everything.

Discussion

One comment for “General Stanley McChrystal Optimistic on Afghanistan”

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Guy-Montag/100000682995139 Guy Montag

    The book jacket for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s new memoir, “My Share of the Task,” promises to “frankly explore the major episodes and controversies of his eventful career.” However, despite McChrystal’s vaunted “candor,” his memoir whitewashes or ignores all  the controversies of his career.  For example, he still declines to “confirm or
    deny” the accuracy of Michael Hasting’s “Rolling Stone” profile which got him
    fired (McChrystal doesn’t even mention Hastings by name, nor discuss his 2012 book,
    “The Operators” which details “Le’Affair Rolling Stan”).

     
    McChrystal has said, “The one thing you can never, and should never want to dodge, is responsibility.”  But, he has “dodged” responsibility for his central role in the cover-up of
    Pat Tillman’s 2004 friendly-fire death, the use of routine torture by JSOC forces under his command from 2003-2005, his strategically flawed Afghan War “surge,” and for “Le’Affair
    Rolling Stan” (for details, see my post, “Never Shall I Fail My Comrades” – The Dark Legacy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, at the Feral Firefighter blog).

    General McChrystal played a key role in the Army’s cover up of Pat Tillman’s 2004 friendly fire death in Afghanistan:   McChrystal received confirmation of Tillman’s fratricide within two days, he had the responsibility to pass on notification to the family, made a decision not to tell the family, he supervised the preparation of a misleading Silver Star recommendation (no mention of fratricide, with two witness statements
    apparently altered by the Ranger RGT CO’s, and with “inaccurate” assertions in the citation & supporting narrative), approved the misleading Silver Star citation,  and apparently directed others to conceal friendly fire from the medical examiner and a CID investigator
    (McChrystal’s JAG officer congratulated the Ranger RGT JAG for “keeping the CID
    at bay.”

    And, McChrystal’s portrayal of the interrogations that directly led to the 2006 killing of Abu Zarqawi totally contradicts the accounts of author Marc Bowden (“The Ploy”) and former interrogator Matthew Alexander (“We found Zarqawi in spite of the way the task force did
    business”).  And, McChrystal somehow failed to even mention interrogator Eric Maddox who was decorated for his efforts which directly led to the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein (perhaps because a key detainee had a “heart attack” and died shortly after arriving at Camp Nama).

    In April 2011, just after McChrystal was “cleared” by the Pentagon’s NYT reporter Thom Shanker of “all wrongdoing” in the “Rolling Stone” case, President Obama appointed him to head up the “Joining Forces” program to support military veterans and their families.  In
    response, Mary Tillman (Pat’s mother) said, “It’s a slap in the face to appoint this man” … “He deliberately helped cover up Pat’s death”… someone who has a heartfelt desire to help families would not have been involved in the cover-up of a soldier’s death…”

    This past Memorial Day, I spoke with Mary Tillman and she said seeing Gen. Stanley McChrystal on the news was “like rubbing salt in a wound.” Unfortunately, this old general just won’t fade away; now he’s making the rounds of the talk show circuit peddling his book.   

    In the past, I used to have a grudging respect for McChrystal when he simply refused comment on the Pat Tillman story.   But, if McChrystal won’t be candid about his controversies, I feel he ought to take the advice of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who offered up a barbed assessment of how the White House had “spun” the Bin Laden raid:  “I have a new communications approach to recommend … Shut … up.”