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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on June 22, 2010, 07:00:33 AM
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Gen. Stanley McChrystal coming to Washington to explain anti-administration comments
www.washingtonpost.com
By Ernesto Londoño and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 22, 2010; 9:52 AM
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KABUL -- The top U.S. general in Afghanistan was summoned to Washington for a White House meeting after apologizing Tuesday for flippant and dismissive remarks about top Obama administration officials involved in Afghanistan policy.
The remarks in an article in this week's Rolling Stone magazine are certain to increase tension between the White House and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
The profile of McChrystal, , titled the "Runaway General," also raises fresh questions about the judgment and leadership style of the commander appointed by President Obama last year in an effort to turn around a worsening conflict.
McChrystal and some of his senior advisers are quoted criticizing top administration officials, at times in starkly derisive terms. An anonymous McChrystal aide is quoted as calling national security adviser James L. Jones a "clown," who remains "stuck in 1985."
Referring to Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama's senior envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, one McChrystal aide is quoted as saying: "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous."
On one occasion, McChrystal appears to react with exasperation when he receives an e-mail from Holbrooke. "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," McChrystal says, according to the article. "I don't even want to read it."
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired three-star general, isn't spared. Referring to a leaked cable from Eikenberry that expressed concerns about the trustworthiness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, McChrystal is quoted as having said: "Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so.' "
The magazine hits newsstands Friday and could be posted online earlier in the week. The Washington Post received an advance copy of the article from its author, Michael Hastings, a freelance journalist who has written for The Post.
"I extend my sincerest apology for this profile," McChrystal said in a statement issued Tuesday morning. "It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and it should have never happened."
McChrystal's civilian press aide, Duncan Boothby, submitted his resignation Tuesday as a result of the article, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment on the piece.
The story features an exchange in which McChrystal and some of his aides appear to mock Vice President Biden, who opposed McChrystal's troop surge recommendation last year and instead urged a more focused emphasis on counterterrorism operations.
"Are you asking me about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal asks the profile's reporter at one point, laughing. "Who's that?"
"Biden?" an unnamed aide is quoted as saying. "Did you say Bite me?"
Lt. Col. Joseph Breasseale, a U.S. military spokesman, said McChrystal called Biden and other senior administration officials Tuesday morning (Monday evening in Washington) in reference to the article. "After these discussions, he decided to travel to the U.S. for a meeting," the spokesman said in an e-mail.
Officials in Washington who were familiar with the situation said the general apologized during the phone call. Biden has been highly skeptical of McChrystal's insistence that more troops be sent to Afghanistan.
McChrystal's remarks were made public on the eve of the president's monthly meeting with his top advisers on Afghanistan, which is scheduled to take place on Wednesday. McChrystal typically joins that meeting by a secure videoconference from Afghanistan, but he was summoned to Washington to participate directly and explain his remarks, a senior administration official said Tuesday morning.
The meeting, which includes Biden and many of the other advisers whom McChrystal or his staff mocked in the article, is likely to be tense as the general attempts to make amends in person.
It is not the first time that McChrystal has been dressed down by Obama. Shortly after the general's assessment of the situation in Afghanistan was made public last year, McChrystal gave a speech in London in which he publicly criticized those who advocated a scaled-back effort in Afghanistan.
Those comments were widely seen as being directed against Biden, who had promoted an approach in the country focused on targeting terrorists more narrowly. After that speech, an angry Obama summoned McChrystal to a face-to-face meeting on Air Force One in Copenhagen, where Obama had arrived to pitch Chicago's Olympic bid.
White House officials declined to comment publicly Tuesday morning, but the latest public relations blunder by McChrystal was viewed as sure to further strain his relationship with a president who puts a premium on message discipline and loyalty.
The timing of the piece could hardly be worse. Amid a flurry of bad news in Afghanistan and a jump in NATO casualties, U.S. lawmakers and senior officials from NATO allied countries are asking increasingly sharp questions about the U.S.-led war strategy.
Dutch and Canadian troops are scheduled to pull out within the next year. And the White House has said it will start drawing down U.S. forces next July.
(Photos of recent troop activities in Kandahar, Afghanistan)
The magazine story shows that McChrystal is also facing criticism from some of his own troops, who have grown frustrated with new rules that force commanders be extraordinarily judicious in using lethal force.
A few weeks ago, according to the magazine, the general traveled to a small outpost in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan, to meet with a unit of soldiers reeling from the loss of a comrade, 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Ingram.
The corporal was killed in a booby-trapped house that some of the unit's commanders had unsuccessfully sought permission to blow up.
One soldier at the outpost showed Hastings, who was traveling with the general, a written directive instructing troops to "patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourself with lethal force."
During a tense meeting with Ingram's platoon, one sergeant tells McChrystal: "Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we're losing, sir."
McChrystal has championed a counterinsurgency strategy that prioritizes protecting the population as a means to marginalize and ultimately defeat the insurgency. Because new rules sharply restrict the circumstances under which airstrikes and other lethal operations that have resulted in civilian casualties can be conducted, some soldiers say the strategy has left them more exposed.
June is on track to be the deadliest month for NATO troops in Afghanistan since the war began nearly nine years ago. At least 63 NATO troops have been killed so far this month, including 10 who died Monday in a helicopter crash and a series of attacks.
In his statement, McChrystal says he has "enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team."
"Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity," the general said. "What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard."
More Washington Post coverage of Afghanistan:
The divide between Eikenberry and McChrystal has a long history.
Congressional investigators recently found that the U.S. military is paying millions of dollars in warlords in Afghanistan.
Wikileaks.org says they are about to release combat footage from Afghanistan.
Britain's special representative to Afghanistan has resigned and the British government is reviewing whether to fill the job.
The Kandahar offensive will take months longer than originally planned.
Shear reported from Washington.
londonoe@washpost.com
shearm@washpost.com
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Unbelievable. This family of the corporal should find out whoever denied the blowing up of that house and . . . . . . . .
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The magazine story shows that McChrystal is also facing criticism from some of his own troops, who have grown frustrated with new rules that force commanders be extraordinarily judicious in using lethal force.
A few weeks ago, according to the magazine, the general traveled to a small outpost in Kandahar province, in southern Afghanistan, to meet with a unit of soldiers reeling from the loss of a comrade, 23-year-old Cpl. Michael Ingram.
The corporal was killed in a booby-trapped house that some of the unit's commanders had unsuccessfully sought permission to blow up.
One soldier at the outpost showed Hastings, who was traveling with the general, a written directive instructing troops to "patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourself with lethal force."
During a tense meeting with Ingram's platoon, one sergeant tells McChrystal: "Sir, some of the guys here, sir, think we're losing, sir."
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Where are Patton, Pershing, and MacArthur when you need them?
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Pretty ridiculous, to say the least. There was a story a couple weeks ago that soldiers in certain areas have to patrol without rounds in the chambers of their guns to try win hearts and minds over. Seems like the people in Washington are trying to get as many Americans killed as they can. ::)
Meanwhile, we keep dumping $10+ billion a year into the fucking terrorist state of Pakistan while they're waging a terrorist campaign against us and leading the Afghan Taliban with 7 ISI agents on its leadership council.
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If I had a family member killed like that corporal was, I personally would want to go and take out whoever denied the order. Let the chips fall where they may. If I did 15 -20 years, who cares.
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If I had a family member killed like that corporal was, I personally would want to go and take out whoever denied the order. Let the chips fall where they may. If I did 15 -20 years, who cares.
Should just stick to black ops shit that can be denied. None of this pussyfooting around an enemy that has never heard of the ROE or Geneva and commits war crimes almost every time they do something. ::)
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Should just stick to black ops shit that can be denied. None of this pussyfooting around an enemy that has never heard of the ROE or Geneva and commits war crimes almost every time they do something. ::)
If we are going to do shit like this to be pc, we need to bering everyone home asap. I don't want one soldier dead to those barbarians all because we have to be pussies.
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The left has no plan when it comes to a solvent war strategy. Say what you want about Bush, he took care of sh!t when it came to the war on terror. Ok, I get it.. mistakes were made when OBL escaped. I get it. But in contrast, OBL was not offered to Bush like he was to Clinton by the Saudi's. Clinton flately declined saying; "it would be a political hot potato to hold him without charges". All this AFTER the embassy bombing at the hands of this man.
Bush's plan was to pay off war lords and tribal leaders to capture OBL. Special forces were to infultrate and capture him. This was a mistake because they took the millions handed to them and let him slip out the back. Live and learn. Hey, I actually think OBL is dead anyway... but that's just me.
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The RATS are all leaving this shit show. Rahm will be gone, orzag, McChrystal, etal.
you watch, Hillary will resign and challenge ZERO in a primary.
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The RATS are all leaving this shit show. Rahm will be gone, orzag, McChrystal, etal.
you watch, Hillary will resign and challenge ZERO in a primary.
Oh, we can only dream. ;)
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Oh, we can only dream. ;)
Hillary is no prize but she couldnt be worse than this.
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The left has no plan when it comes to a solvent war strategy. Say what you want about Bush, he took care of sh!t when it came to the war on terror.
::) Talk about revisionism.
Secondly, this is largely a pr war now, so limiting civilian casualties is vital. I don't like seeing our soldiers die, but I don't like war, period. They are soldiers in a voluntary enlistment army and there will be casualties. Winning "hearts and minds" is just as important, if not more, as security efforts in toppling the Taliban. The times when the Taliban was at its weakest have had a lot to do with pr outreach.
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::) Talk about revisionism.
Secondly, this is largely a pr war now, so limiting civilian casualties is vital. I don't like seeing our soldiers die, but I don't like war, period. They are soldiers in a voluntary enlistment army and there will be casualties. Winning "hearts and minds" is just as important, if not more, as security efforts in toppling the Taliban. The times when the Taliban was at its weakest have had a lot to do with pr outreach.
::) ::)
If we are not winning hearts and minds with .308's, .223's. mortars, JDAMS, etc we need to get the hell out there.
Send in Oprah and Ellen if you want to win hears and minds, not soldiers.
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::) ::)
If we are not winning hearts and minds with .308's, .223's. mortars, JDAMS, etc we need to get the hell out there.
True, but upping the Afghan mortality rate is not going to win this war.
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True, but upping the Afghan mortality rate is not going to win this war.
I have a lot of military buddies. They are trained to break things and kill people, not play oprah on the couch.
The military are not the hearts and minds types.
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For the good of the country McChrystal needs to be replaced. It's obvious there are differences between the admin and him and it's not going to get any better. Time for Obama to step up and appoint someone who he gets along with.
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KC, I agree, but that story about the corporal made me want to vomit thinking of that family reading about this.
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KC, I agree, but that story about the corporal made me want to vomit thinking of that family reading about this.
I think most families feel sick regarding the death of their loved ones. I'm sure there have been many deaths which potentially could have been avoided by blowing something up or driving on a different road, not releasing someone etc. It's part of the unpredictability of war. Mistakes happen, lives are lost. It's the cost of battle and human error. It's been happening ever since the first war between men.
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I think most families feel sick regarding the death of their loved ones. I'm sure there have been many deaths which potentially could have been avoided by blowing something up or driving on a different road, not releasing someone etc. It's part of the unpredictability of war. Mistakes happen, lives are lost. It's the cost of battle and human error. It's been happening ever since the first war between men.
True, but to me it never gets old or mundane. I just imagine a grieving family reading that maybe their loved one could be alive but for aosmeone holding back an order, etc. And I know its on both sides and their loved ones as well.
I am of the Patton mind set. Either go in and do what you have to do as fast and powerful as possible to get it over with as soon as possible or don't do it at all.
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True, but to me it never gets old or mundane. I just imagine a grieving family reading that maybe their loved one could be alive but for aosmeone holding back an order, etc. And I know its on both sides and their loved ones as well.
I am of the Patton mind set. Either go in and do what you have to do as fast and powerful as possible to get it over with as soon as possible or don't do it at all.
I'm sure Patton made mistakes too that cost lives. All generals do. The family might be mad he's even at war over there i know lots seem to be. It's a sad reality of war and it's important that all Americans hear about the sacrifice being made whether they agree with the reasons for going or not.
Hindsight is 20/20 when the troops first went in there was thousands of civilian casualties, how many Americans have died at the hands of those seeking revenge for their loved ones?
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For the good of the country McChrystal needs to be replaced. It's obvious there are differences between the admin and him and it's not going to get any better. Time for Obama to step up and appoint someone who he gets along with.
So another parrot to play a more active role in getting Americans killed? Yes, that's exactly what we need. ::)
Obama sat there and applauded Calderon as he railed against America and then has the gall to piss and moan when a general tells it like it is. So much for freedom of speech.
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So another parrot to play a more active role in getting Americans killed? Yes, that's exactly what we need. ::)
Obama sat there and applauded Calderon as he railed against America and then has the gall to piss and moan when a general tells it like it is. So much for freedom of speech.
Yeah okay lets have two people at odds with each other in a position of high importance. Good move BF. If two high level people can't get along (and it seems they can't) then one of them has to go. It isn't going to be Obama yet so McChrystal is the only alternative. Debate and disagreements are good, bad blood is not.
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Still another reason why I don't like the media. What exactly did McChrystal (as opposed to his "aides") say that was so offensive?
Obama 'angry' after reading general's controversial remarks
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 22, 2010
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama was "angry" after reading Gen. Stanley McChrystal's controversial remarks about colleagues in a Rolling Stone article, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.
The "magnitude and graveness" of McChrystal's mistake in conducting the interview for the article were "profound," Gibbs said.
He noted that McChrystal has been recalled to Washington to participate in a Wednesday planning meeting on strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and, more to the point, to explain his actions to Obama. McChrystal will have the president's "undivided attention," Gibbs said. Obama "looks forward to speaking with him ... about what's in the article."
Gibbs refused to speculate on McChrystal's fate, but said the White House will "have more to say after that meeting." Several top officials have strongly criticized McChrystal, but they said it will ultimately be up to Obama to decide the general's fate.
McChrystal apologized Tuesday for the profile, in which the general and his staff appear to mock top civilian officials, including the vice president. Two defense officials said the general has also fired a press aide over the article, set to appear in Friday's edition of Rolling Stone magazine.
"I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," McChrystal said in a Pentagon statement. "Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard."
In the profile, author Michael Hastings writes that McChrystal and his staff had imagined ways of dismissing Vice President Joe Biden with a one-liner as they prepared for a question-and-answer session in Paris in April. The general had grown tired of questions about Biden since earlier dismissing a counterterrorism strategy the vice president had offered.
"'Are you asking about Vice President Biden?' McChrystal says with a laugh. 'Who's that?'"
"'Biden?' suggests a top adviser. 'Did you say: Bite Me?'"
McChrystal does not directly criticize Obama in the article, but Hastings writes that the general and Obama "failed to connect" from the outset after the president took office. Sources familiar with the meeting said McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the room full of top military officials, according to the article.
Later, McChrystal's first one-on-one meeting with Obama "was a 10-minute photo op," Hastings writes, quoting an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f---ing war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss (McChrystal) was disappointed."
The article goes on to paint McChrystal as a man who "has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict," including U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Special Representative to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke and National Security Adviser Jim Jones. Obama is not named as one of McChrystal's "team of rivals."
Of Eikenberry, who railed against McChrystal's strategy in Afghanistan in a cable leaked to The New York Times in January, the general is quoted as saying, "'Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, "I told you so.'"
Hastings writes in the profile that McChrystal has a "special skepticism" for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating Taliban members into Afghan society and the administration's point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry, according to the article. 'Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke,' he groans. 'I don't even want to open it.' He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
"'Make sure you don't get any of that on your leg,' an aide jokes, referring to the e-mail."
The White House did not immediately issue public comment on the article. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, weighed in, however. Addressing the controversy at the start of a committee hearing on another subject, Kerry said his "impression is that all of us would be best served by just backing off and staying cool and calm and not sort of succumbing to the normal Washington twitter about this for the next 24 hours."
McChrystal is "a terrific soldier," Kerry said. But ultimately "it will be up to the president of the United States, as commander in chief" to decide how to respond.
Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Jim Webb of Virginia -- key senators on defense and foreign policy issues -- were all strongly critical of McChrystal's remarks, but noted that the general's future is a decision for Obama to make.
A U.S. military official said Tuesday that McChrystal has spoken to Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and other officials referenced in the story, including Holbrooke, Eikenberry and Jones.
An official at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Eikenberry and McChrystal "are both fully committed" to Obama's Afghan strategy and are working together to "implement" the plan. "We have seen the article and General McChrystal has already spoken to it," according to a statement from an embassy official, making reference to McChrystal's apology.
"I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome," McChrystal said in the closing to his apology.
Rolling Stone Executive Editor Eric Bates, however, struck a less optimistic tone during an interview with CNN Tuesday.
The comments made by McChrystal and other top military aides during the interview were "not off the cuff remarks," he said. They "knew what they were doing when they granted the access." The story shows "a deep division" and "war within the administration" over strategy in Afghanistan, he contended.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/22/general.mcchrystal.obama.apology/index.html?hpt=T2
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Don't Blame McChrystal, Blame Obama
Washington Post- Post Partisan ^ | 6/22/2010 | Jackson Diehl
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 3:22:42 PM by Qbert
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Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal should not lose his job because of the article about him in Rolling Stone magazine. If anyone deserves blame for the latest airing of the administration’s internal feuds over Afghanistan, it is President Obama.
For months Obama has tolerated deep divisions between his military and civilian aides over how to implement the counterinsurgency strategy he announced last December. The divide has made it practically impossible to fashion a coherent politico-military plan, led to frequent disputes over tactics and contributed to a sharp deterioration in the administration’s relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The virtue of the Rolling Stone article is that Obama may finally have to confront the trouble. But the dismissal of McChrystal would be the wrong outcome. It could spell disaster for the military campaign he is now overseeing in southern Afghanistan, and it would reward those in the administration who have been trying to undermine him, including through media leaks of their own.
[Snip]
Nor is McChrystal the only participant in the feuding who has gone public with his argument. A scathing memo by Eikenberry describing Karzai as an unreliable partner was leaked to the press last fall. At a White House press briefing during Karzai’s visit to Washington last month, the ambassador pointedly refused to endorse the Afghan leader he must work with.
Biden, for his part, gave an interview to Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter in which he said that in July of next year “you are going to see a whole lot of [U.S. troops] moving out.” Yet as Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates tartly pointed out over the weekend, “that absolutely has not been decided.” Instead, Biden was pushing his personal version of the strategy Obama approved, which calls for the beginning of withdrawals next year...
(Excerpt) Read more at voices.washingtonpost.co m ...
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Some people say he's right, others wrong. The central problem is the bad blood between the president and McChrystal. McChrystal must be fired whether this is his fault or not. The relationship was rocky at best and this is only going to make it worse.
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Skip to comments.
FLASH: According to an unnamed source 'Gen. McChrystal has submitted his resignation'
Drudge Report ^
Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 4:48:36 PM by traumer
- Joe Klein on Rick Sanchez, CNN... Developing...
(Excerpt) Read more at drudgereport.com ...
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good move.
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Too bad.
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Too bad.
Why? They didn't get along and had opposite ideas. Not exactly harmonious.
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Why? They didn't get along and had opposite ideas. Not exactly harmonious.
Much better to get a yes man in there.
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Much better to get a yes man in there.
Not necessarily. But the bad blood between them wasn't exactly a good thing. If you can't get along in disagreement then one of you should go.
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Why? They didn't get along and had opposite ideas. Not exactly harmonious.
This isn't about a clash of ideas. Obama doesn't know squat about military matters. He doesn't need to "get along" with his commanders. He needs sound advice, which I'm sure General McChrystal gives him, and needs to give whatever minimal orders are necessary. He rarely interacts with commanders in theater anyway.
I didn't read anything directly from General McChrystal that sounded bad to me. Some of his "aides" comments were out of line. I get the feeling the military folks view Obama like another Carter and don't have much respect for him.
Sounds like more "gotcha" tactics by the media.
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Oh please civility is more than necessary it's essential to a good working relationship. The same thing happened to Powell. He left because the relationship wasn't working. Same thing happened here. In both cases it was the right call. The CIC has the final say and always will.
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The generals work for the President. That's the bottom line.
If the generals undermine the president's authority, they are helping the enemies in that war, and you can usually expect a resignation before too long...
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The generals work for the President. That's the bottom line.
If the generals undermine the president's authority, they are helping the enemies in that war, and you can usually expect a resignation before too long...
but wait 240 the exception to that rule is when a democrat is president then it's more than okay to do so. But with a republican well you're either with them or against the united states of america!
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but wait 240 the exception to that rule is when a democrat is president then it's more than okay to do so. But with a republican well you're either with them or against the united states of america!
i don't remember Clinton having these problems.
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Not necessarily.
I was being facetious.
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Oh please civility is more than necessary it's essential to a good working relationship. The same thing happened to Powell. He left because the relationship wasn't working. Same thing happened here. In both cases it was the right call. The CIC has the final say and always will.
What evidence do you have that General McChrystal has been uncivil with the president?
I think this is more about Obama protecting his ego. Can't have the men in uniform talking stink about him. ::)
Nobody is saying Obama doesn't have the right to fire the guy. Of course he does. Whether he should fire the guy because he hurt Obama's feelings is another story.
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So it's either okay for miliary men to trash the prez/his policies, or its not.
Which is it? I dont care either way, this story bores me.
But we should be consistent. if it's cool here, then it should be cool for any of the folks that did it to bush.
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i don't remember Clinton having these problems.
Yeah. He did. Lots of people thought he was a draft dodger. Remember the veterans who would turn their back on him? And when he screwed around with military pay there was near mutiny. :)
I actually don't recall Bush having problems with being disrespected by the military.
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So it's either okay for miliary men to trash the prez/his policies, or its not.
Which is it? I dont care either way, this story bores me.
But we should be consistent. if it's cool here, then it should be cool for any of the folks that did it to bush.
He didn't trash the president.
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ah gotcha. did he trash the pres' policy?
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The generals work for the President. That's the bottom line.
If the generals undermine the president's authority, they are helping the enemies in that war, and you can usually expect a resignation before too long...
I was gonna resume my post to one word. INSUBORDINATION. Regardless if the president is a democrat or republican, you take orders directly from him, good or bad. Soldiers are meant to be following orders, if you wanna be a politician get into that field. Plain and simple.
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ah gotcha. did he trash the pres' policy?
Not really. He didn't trash Barry or his policies from what I've read and there's no insubordination involved. The real issue, IMO, is professionalism. When McChrystal and his aides were talking to the press, they were doing so in a capacity that represented the U.S. Military. And when your representing the military, you don't make flippant comments, side-jokes, talk about how the Prez hurt your feelings, etc.
The general's got plenty of public affairs people to handle this shit for him, and he should of just let the PR people do their job. I hope Obama takes his stellar military career into account, but being called back for a face to face...I'm thinking he's gone.
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Not really. He didn't trash Barry or his policies from what I've read and there's no insubordination involved. The real issue, IMO, is professionalism. When McChrystal and his aides were talking to the press, they were doing so in a capacity that represented the U.S. Military. And when your representing the military, you don't make flippant comments, side-jokes, talk about how the Prez hurt your feelings, etc.
The general's got plenty of public affairs people to handle this shit for him, and he should of just let the PR people do their job. I hope Obama takes his stellar military career into account, but being called back for a face to face...I'm thinking he's gone.
He's gone. I watched the press secretary's comments this morning. Sounded like he was scolding someone's kid. ::) But the very clear message was he's gone. After the "meeting."
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I can only imagine how pissed off our military people are at this admn.
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‘Little America’: Infighting on Obama team squandered chance for peace in Afghanistan
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Sunday, June 24, 5:37 PM
Excerpted from “Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan.”
In late March 2010, President Obama’s national security adviser, James L. Jones, summoned Richard C. Holbrooke to the White House for a late-afternoon conversation. The two men rarely had one-on-one meetings, even though Holbrooke, the State Department’s point man for Afghanistan, was a key member of Obama’s war cabinet.
As Holbrooke entered Jones’s West Wing office, he sensed that the discussion was not going to be about policy, but about him. Holbrooke believed his principal mission was to accomplish what he thought Obama wanted: a peace deal with the Taliban. The challenge energized Holbrooke, who had more experience with ending wars than anyone in the administration. In 1968, he served on the U.S. delegation to the Paris peace talks with North Vietnam. And in 1995, he forged a deal in the former Yugoslavia to end three years of bloody sectarian fighting.
The discussion quickly wound to Jones’s main point: He told Holbrooke that he should start considering his “exit strategy” from the administration.
As he left the meeting, Holbrooke pulled out his trump card — a call to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was traveling in Saudi Arabia. The following week, Clinton went to see Obama armed with a list of Holbrooke’s accomplishments. “Mr. President,” she said, “you can fire Richard Holbrooke — over the objection of your secretary of state.” But Jim Jones, Clinton said, could not.
Obama backed down, but Jones didn’t, nor did others at the White House. Instead of capitalizing on Holbrooke’s experience and supporting his push for reconciliation with the Taliban, White House officials dwelled on his shortcomings — his disorganization, his manic intensity, his thirst for the spotlight, his dislike of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, his tendency to badger fellow senior officials. At every turn, they sought to marginalize him and diminish his influence.
The infighting exacted a staggering cost: The Obama White House failed to aggressively explore negotiations to end the war when it had the most boots on the battlefield.
Even after Obama decided not to fire Holbrooke, Jones and his top deputy for Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, kept adding items to a dossier of Holbrooke’s supposed misdeeds that Lute was compiling. They even drafted a cover letter that called him ineffective because he had ruined his relationships with Karzai, the U.S. ambassador in Kabul and officials in the Pakistani government. Lute told NSC staffers that he and Jones planned to use the information to persuade the president to override Clinton’s objection.
In the interim, Jones and Lute sought to put Holbrooke into a box. Officials at the National Security Council would schedule key meetings when Holbrooke was out of town. When they didn’t want him to travel to the region, they refused to allow him to use a military airplane. They even sought to limit the number of aides Holbrooke could take on his trips.
Lute and other NSC staffers cooked up their most audacious plan to undercut Holbrooke shortly before Karzai’s visit to Washington in April 2010. They arranged for him to be excluded from Obama’s Oval Office meeting with the Afghan leader, and then they planned to give Obama talking points for the session that would slight Holbrooke. Among the lines they wanted the president to deliver to Karzai: Everyone in this room represents me and has my trust. The implication would be that Holbrooke, who would not be present, was not Obama’s man. The scheme was foiled when Clinton insisted that Holbrooke attend the session.
With Clinton protecting him, Holbrooke spent far less time worrying about how to save his job than Lute spent trying to fire him. “Doug is out of his depth fighting with me,” Holbrooke told one of his aides. “The White House can’t afford to get rid of me.”
Obama could have ordered a stop to the infighting; after all, he favored a negotiated end to the war. But his sympathies lay with his NSC staffers — Holbrooke’s frenetic behavior was the antithesis of Obama’s “no-drama” rule. The president never granted Holbrooke a one-on-one session in the Oval Office, and when he traveled to Afghanistan in March 2010, he took more than a dozen staffers, but not Holbrooke, who was not even informed of the trip in advance. During the Situation Room sessions to discuss Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for more forces in late 2009, Obama kept his views about surging to himself, but he was far less reticent about Holbrooke. At the start of one meeting, Holbrooke gravely compared the “momentous decision” Obama faced to what Lyndon B. Johnson had grappled with during the Vietnam War. “Richard,” Obama said, “do people really talk like that?”
The president’s lack of support devastated Holbrooke’s loyal staff members, who were just as skeptical of the military’s counterinsurgency strategy as Lute and others in the White House were. “The tragedy of it all is that Richard’s views about all of this stuff — about the surge, about Pakistan and about reconciliation — were probably closer to the president’s than anyone else in the administration,” said former Holbrooke senior adviser Vali Nasr, now the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “If the president had wanted to, he could have found a kindred spirit in Richard.”
No clear path to peace
To Holbrooke, a towering man with an irrepressible personality, brokering a deal with the Taliban was the only viable strategy to end the war.
He was convinced that the military’s goal of defeating the Taliban would be too costly and time-consuming, and the chances of success were almost nil, given the safe havens in Pakistan, the corruption of Karzai’s government and the sorry state of the Afghan army.
Obama told his aides that he was interested in a peace deal, and less than two months after he took office, the president said publicly that he was open to seeking reconciliation with the Taliban, comparing such an effort to a U.S. initiative to work with former Sunni militants in Iraq who were willing to break with al-Qaeda.
His comments alarmed top military and intelligence officials. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, chief of U.S. Central Command, thought it was too soon even to talk about talking. They wanted to commit more troops first and then talk, but only to Taliban leaders who agreed to surrender. CIA officials argued that the United States could not negotiate with the Taliban until its leadership denounced al-Qaeda.
There was no clear path for Holbrooke to achieve peace talks. The Taliban had no office, mailing address, or formal structure. It was not clear that its leader, the reclusive Mullah Mohammed Omar, wanted to talk — in 2009, the Taliban appeared to be winning — or whether he and his fellow mullahs would accept the United States’ conditions for negotiations: that they renounce violence, break with al-Qaeda and embrace the Afghan constitution.
Even if they did, would the terms be acceptable to the Karzai government? What about Pakistan and other neighboring powers? If Holbrooke was going to have any chance of success, he needed the backing of others in the administration, starting with the president.
But the White House never issued a clear policy on reconciliation during the administration’s first two years. Instead of finding common purpose with Holbrooke, White House officials were consumed with fighting him. Jones and Lute hated the thought of Holbrooke basking in the spotlight as he did after peace in the Balkans. They wanted him out of the way, and then they would chart a path to peace.
Staffs at war
At the White House, most of the day-to-day combat with Holbrooke was led by Lute. He had joined the George W. Bush White House as an active-duty three-star general to serve as the Iraq and Afghanistan war czar. When Obama became president, he had decided to keep Lute around, in part because he could warn them if his fellow generals were trying to pull a fast one on the new crop of civilians.
Lute spent much of his time organizing meetings and compiling data that showed how the war was being lost. He believed his work was vital, and he thought that Holbrooke needed to follow his lead. But Holbrooke believed Lute needed to take orders from him, not the other way around. Holbrooke began to treat Lute as an errand boy, sometimes calling four times in an hour.
Lute’s resentment grew with each request that Holbrooke’s office ignored and each State Department memo that had to be revised by the NSC staff. Before long, the two men’s staffs were in open warfare.
Senior officials at the White House let the fighting persist. Holbrooke had no friends on Team Obama. Denis McDonough, then the NSC chief of staff, had been angered by Holbrooke’s strong-arming of Democratic foreign policy experts to support Clinton during the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Ben Rhodes, the NSC’s communications director, claimed to colleagues that Holbrooke was the source of leaks of sensitive matters to journalists. And Vice President Biden’s dislike of him dated to Bill Clinton’s administration.
With his frequent references to Vietnam and flair for the dramatic, Holbrooke’s style left him the odd man out with White House advisers. If Obama or Clinton was not at a meeting, Holbrooke insisted on dominating the conversation. He was a throwback to a time when men like Henry Kissinger and George Kennan held unrivaled sway over policy.
“He spoke like a man who just left talking to Kennan — and walked into 2009, still in black and white, with his hat on,” said Vikram Singh, one of his top deputies. “Sometimes it was a bunch of bulls---, and sometimes it was a bunch of wisdom. But if you were this young crowd that came in with Barack Obama, it seemed cartoonish. . . . They weren’t able to hear what he was saying because they were distracted by the mannerisms and the way he did things — and he couldn’t figure that out.”
The only one who understood him was Clinton. She was indebted to Holbrooke for his support during the 2008 primaries and for delivering peace in the Balkans, the most significant diplomatic breakthrough of Bill Clinton’s presidency. She tolerated his idiosyncrasies because she was confident that he’d deliver a breakthrough in Afghanistan.
‘Anybody but Richard’
As the White House and Holbrooke bickered, promising leads withered.
In July 2009, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia sent a personal message to Obama asking him to dispatch someone to meet with a group of Taliban emissaries who had opened up a rare line of communication with the Saudi intelligence service. The Saudi intelligence chief had already met with the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh and the CIA station chief there to discuss the initiative, but the Saudis deemed the discussions so promising that Abdullah asked his ambassador to Washington to discuss the matter with Jones. Holbrooke figured the overture was worth pursuing. But the offer languished at the NSC.
The NSC eventually expressed support for reconciliation in the spring of 2010, but with a twist: Lute favored a U.N. envoy to lead the effort. His preferred candidate was former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, who had served as a U.N. special representative to Afghanistan. Lute’s plan relegated Holbrooke to a support role.
Lute argued that Brahimi had Karzai’s trust and that he could deal with Iran and Pakistan in ways that a U.S. diplomat couldn’t. There was also the opportunity to shift blame for failure. “If this doesn’t work,” he told colleagues, “do we want to own it or do we want the U.N. to?”
It seemed a masterstroke — except that the Afghan and Pakistani governments despised the idea. Everyone in the region wanted the United States to lead the effort. They knew the United Nations was powerless.
Clinton was furious with Lute. “We don’t outsource our foreign policy,” she declared to Holbrooke and his staff. Then she went to Obama to kill the idea.
Even with Brahimi rejected, Lute resumed his efforts to find someone else to take charge of reconciliation, this time focusing on retired American diplomats.
“It was driven by hatred,” said an NSC staffer who worked for Lute. “Doug wanted anybody but Richard.”
Shift on reconciliation
As Washington officials quarreled, a quiet shift was occurring at the NATO headquarters in Kabul. While other military leaders opposed reconciliation, McChrystal began softening to the idea. His thinking was shaped by Christopher Kolenda, an astute Army colonel who had been working on a program to provide resettlement and job-training to low-level insurgents who wanted to stop fighting. In December 2009, Kolenda explained to McChrystal how Mullah Omar’s annual messages at the Eid-al-Fitr holiday had become more sophisticated and moderate. The Taliban, he told the general, “is opening the aperture for a different outcome.”
As spring turned to summer, McChrystal became a believer. He realized that the United States would not be able to get an outright military victory, and the Afghan government would not be able to get an outright political victory, so a peace deal was the only solution. McChrystal didn’t want to let up on the Taliban just yet, but he said he was ready to “clearly show them there’s daylight if you go to it.” In early June, he directed Kolenda to prepare a briefing for Karzai on reconciliation.
Later that month McChrystal was fired over comments he and some top aides made disparaging American civilian officials. Obama tapped Petraeus, who led the effort to beat back insurgents in Iraq, to replace McChrystal and energize the war effort. When Petraeus arrived in Kabul, he ordered a halt to the military’s reconciliation activities. He told his subordinates that if the Americans applied enough military pressure, the insurgents would switch sides in droves. To some in the headquarters, it sounded as if he wanted to duplicate what had occurred in Iraq’s Anbar province, when Sunni tribesmen had eventually decided to forsake al-Qaeda and side with the United States. Although Obama had mentioned the Sunni Awakening as a possible model in his first public comments on reconciliation, his views had evolved by the summer of 2010. He told his war cabinet that he was open to pursuing negotiations with the enemy, the likes of which never occurred in Iraq. Petraeus’s approach was more akin to accepting a surrender from a rival under siege.
At the White House, Lute and other NSC staffers were so obsessed with Holbrooke that they failed to marshal support among the war cabinet to force Petraeus to shift course. On a visit to Kabul in October 2010, Holbrooke sought to lobby Petraeus directly.
“Dave, we need to talk about reconciliation,” Holbrooke said to Petraeus as they got into an armored sport-utility vehicle, according to Holbrooke’s recollection to his staff.
“Richard, that’s a 15-second conversation,” Petraeus replied. “Yes, eventually. But no. Not now.”
A desire to negotiate
Holbrooke died of a torn aorta on Dec.13, 2010. His memorial service in Washington was held on a chilly January afternoon in the packed opera house of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Obama delivered a eulogy. So did Bill and Hillary Clinton and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The differences in their speeches revealed how distant Holbrooke’s relationship with Obama had been. The sitting president spoke with eloquence, but his remarks sounded stiff, devoid of a single personal anecdote.
Hillary Clinton, by contrast, celebrated the very traits that Jones, Lute and others had derided: “There are many of us in this audience who’ve had the experience of Richard calling 10 times a day if he had to say something urgent, and of course, he believed everything he had to say was urgent. And if he couldn’t reach you, he would call your staff. He’d wait outside your office. He’d walk into meetings to which he was not invited, act like he was meant to be there, and just start talking.”
But it wasn’t until the following month, at a memorial event for Holbrooke in New York, that Clinton said what he really would have wanted to hear: “The security and governance gains produced by the military and civilian surges have created an opportunity to get serious about a responsible reconciliation process.” The United States finally had indicated a clear desire to negotiate with the Taliban.
Clinton also revealed a crucial shift in U.S. policy. The three core American requirements — that the Taliban renounce violence, abandon al-Qaeda and abide by Afghanistan’s constitution — were no longer preconditions for talks but “necessary outcomes of any negotiation.” That meant the Taliban could come as they were. It was the speech that Holbrooke had sought to deliver for a year. Ironically, the only man in the administration to negotiate an end to a war had been an impediment to ending this war.
With Holbrooke gone, Lute stopped insisting on an envoy from outside the State Department. The White House empowered Holbrooke’s successor, diplomat Marc Grossman, to pursue negotiations. And Pentagon and CIA officials ceased their opposition to the prospect of talks with the Taliban.
Although military gains across southern Afghanistan had put the United States in a slightly better negotiating position by that February, nothing had changed fundamentally since Holbrooke’s last push to persuade others in the Obama administration to embrace a peace plan. Nothing except his death.
For more information about “Little America” and to read another excerpt, go to rajivc.com.