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Update [2010-6-22 11:43:52 by Oui]: White House summons US general to explain himself
(AP) – An article out this week in “Rollingstone” magazine depicts Gen. Stanley McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to convince even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.
A band of McChrystal’s profane, irreverent aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The profile, titled “The Runaway General” emerged from several weeks of interviews and travel with McChrystal’s tight circle of aides this spring.
It includes a list of administration figures said to back McChrystal, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and puts Biden at the top of a list of those who don’t.
The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war “by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House.”
Biden initially opposed McChrystal’s proposal for additional forces last year. He favored a narrower focus on hunting terrorists.
If Eikenberry had the same doubts, McChrystal said he never expressed them until a leaked internal document threw a wild card into the debate over whether to add more troops last November. In the document, Eikenberry said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not a reliable partner for the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal was hired to execute.
McChrystal said he felt “betrayed” and accused the ambassador of giving himself cover.
(The Atlantic) – Eikenberry‘s beef with McChrystal goes back to the time when McChrystal was the Pope. The Pope is the head of the Joint Special Operations Command. The nickname goes back to an off-hand remark that Janet Reno made after failing to obtain information from JSOC after the raid at Waco. (JSOC operators were on the ground but did not assist in the raid itself.) She called JSOC the Vatican. And the head of the Vatican is … the Pope.
At some point, I think in 2005, one of McChrystal’s task-forces-that-didn’t-really-exist did something in Afghanistan that angered Eikenberriy, who was in command of the region at the time. The two men exchanged words and built mutual mistrust. They have not worked well together ever since.
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(WaPo) May 9, 2010 – In Afghanistan, much of Karzai’s handling has fallen to McChrystal, who often takes the Afghan leader on his travels inside the country. According to diplomats in Afghanistan and analysts who travel there often, Karzai does not think he can trust Eikenberry or Richard C. Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to the region, who has had a long and bitter relationship with the Afghan leader. A senior foreign diplomat in Kabul called Holbrooke a Karzai “bete noire,” but both Holbrooke and Eikenberry say they have a productive relationship with the Afghan president.
Karzai: Biden, Eikenberry vs Clinton, McChrystal
This follows several months of press leaks and public criticism of Karzai, his family, and top officials for corruption, incompetence, and alleged ties to Afghanistan’s opium industry. Karzai retaliated for the diplomatic slights by musing about joining the Taliban during a meeting with Afghan elders.
The Obama administration’s divisions over Karzai are well-known. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is regarded as Karzai’s “best friend” in Washington, while Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor James L. Jones are known to be among his harshest critics.
The divide extends to Kabul: Gen. Stanley McChrystal has repeatedly urged Obama to identify more closely with Karzai, while Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke have urged him to distance himself from the Afghan president.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
We love mavericks, don’t we?
I see nothing in the article a meeting with a few beers can’t fix. We’re on the way out of Afghanistan anyhow! Aren’t we?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(Politico) – McChrystal’s mouth has gotten him in trouble before. On CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he impoliticly said after 70 days in Afghanistan: “I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once.” In an ill-advised speech in London last fall, he questioned the U.S. military’s civilian leaders, and made a reference to “Chaos-istan” that may have come from a classified paper.
Obama summoned McChrystal to a dressing-down aboard Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, when the president was promoting Chicago’s Olympics bid.
As The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman noted as he asked a question at Tuesday’s White House briefing: “He’s already had his woodshed moment.”
White House angry at General Stanley McChrystal speech on Afghanistan
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
4 Star General McChrystal should be fired for drinking Bud Light Lime beer, what a wimp!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
Karzai Loses His Only Friend
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
2010-06-007For Immediate Release
Statement by General Stanley McChrystal
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment — and a desire to see the mission succeed — that I tendered my resignation.
It has been my privilege and honor to lead our nation’s finest.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."