Gen. McChrystal allies, Rolling Stone disagree over article's ground rules

[Gadawg73]

Media fragging needs a quick come back.

 

[ba1614]

Gen. McChrystal allies, Rolling Stone disagree over article's ground rules

It was 2:30 Tuesday morning in Kabul, after a busy day of travel to Kandahar and meetings with top Afghan officials, when Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal was awakened by an aide with grim news.

"There's a Rolling Stone article out," the aide told McChrystal. "It's very, very bad."

Forty hours later, McChrystal had been relieved of his command, his 34-year military career in tatters. Apart from a terse apology, McChrystal has not discussed publicly the disparaging remarks that he and his aides made about administration officials and that appeared in the article.

Neither McChrystal nor members of his staff have denied making any of the remarks quoted in the story, including a description of Obama as "uncomfortable and intimidated" in his first meeting with the general and a reference to national security adviser James L. Jones as a "clown."

Thoughts USMB? Did he say it off-the-record? Even if it was, should of he had said it?

It wasn't off the record, these interviews were approved even the ones his aids participated in were approved by the general. Michael Hastings was on Morning Joe describing how it went.

Well fuck, that settles it, the general and his men are lying, the Rolling Stone said so on the mornin' joe!!!!

 

[Claudette]

From what I've heard of McChrystal he is very liberal guy.

Rumor has it that he won't even allow Fox on the TV in his office. LOL

The General allowed Hastings, a left wing reporter from a left wing magazine, to imbed with his guys. He probably thought he would get a square deal from Hastings. One lefty to another. I doubt serioiusly he would have allowed just any ol body to imbed with him.

That being said, he should have known better. Reporters are reporters. A story is a story and thats just that. He and his staff should have watched what they said. He fucked up.

McChrystal is a hero in my book. All soldiers are heros in my book. What they do on the battlefield not what they do in a bar tells me just what these guys are made of. One more that outweighs the other.

I, for one, won't let this incident sway my thoughts on that.

 

[georgephillip]

McChrystal was the one who tightened up the ROE in order to reduce civilian casualties as much as possible. Petraeus is the one who just recently loosened them up so that troops can use deadly force with fewer restrictions.

Seems to me that you don't understand McChrystal's approach.

You're right to say I don't understand McChrystal's approach.
Probably because my military service was limited to (the longest) 10 days of my life in March of 1966.

However, when someone like McChrystal talks of "winning hearts and minds" I'm old enough to remember another decorated liar named Westmoreland who tried to buy his way into the White House by killing millions of innocent Asians.

If it's true more Afghan civilians and US troops have died since May 12, 2009 when McChrystal replaced McKiernan, then possibly the intent of that change was to shift assaults against Afghan civilians into the realm of undercover operations thereby making it easier to duck the blame while more US troops died awaiting air support that never came.

War is a Racket.

It is true. However, what your source omits is that McChrystal made a controversial decision to place more restrictions on when troops can shoot their weapons in an effort to reduce the number of casualties and to win more support from the locals. The result was less civilian casualties but more US troop casualties. This didn't stop him from aggressively seeking out the Taliban and al Qaida.

As for "innocent civilians," all I can tell you is that there are no good guys when it comes to this type of warfare. It's very nasty business.

Is it possible to separate the warfare from the business, i.e., can "war profits" be considered independently of "war?"

My dog in this fight is a retired Marine Corp general named Butler whose 72 page book, War is a Racket, details his thoughts on all the new millionaires created by World War I.

About two years ago another retired Marine general was asked on C-SPAN if he had ever considered running for congress.

The first words from Anthony Zinni's mouth revealed he would take a 90% cut in pay to go into politics.

In the same way American chattel slavery could have been taxed into extinction in the decades between Valley Forge and Cold Harbor, we could today conscript war profits into the birth of high speed National rail and internet networks.

 

[georgephillip]

Rolling Stone? He's too busy watching World cup soccer with Bill Clinton.

Elvis is STILL dead...

 

[Toome]

there are no good guys when it comes to this type of warfare

How liberating that everybody is a target.

That's exactly the thinking of terrorists.

Time McVey totally agrees with you.

Well, son, since you made the mistake of comparing me to Timothy McVey, let me clarify some things for you.

During WWII, the perception of good guy vs bad guy was pretty easy to make. The Germans were the ones invading peace-loving countries like Belgium, France and the Netherlands. The Japanese were the dirty low bastards who attacked us on a Sunday. It was all a matter of good vs. evil.

What you'll find on the modern battlefield is that those distinctions are no longer easy to make. The people you're defending may be supportive and enthusiastic, but they also grow poppy fields and are part of a sophisticated drug market. The people you're fighting might be wearing the wrong color uniform or be the ones responsible for terrorist attacks but in private might have the type of family values not too different from your own. My point, Tinkerbell, is that this type of warfare gets very confusing for the boot on the ground that it's not easy telling the difference between good guys and bad guys.

It's a shame you read more into it than intended.

Easy to tell that you've never been in combat, Cupcake.

 

[georgephillip]

While I'm not sure if Kathy Kelly falls into the "Tinkerbell" or "Cupcake" catalog, she has made dozens of forays into combat zones over the last several decades with consistently less back up than our troops.

In one of her recent postings, Kathy, along with Dan Pearson, report from Afghanistan on eleven incidents since April 9, 2009 where US forces killed innocent civilians and then tried to cover up by claiming they killed insurgents.

Boots on the ground undoubtedly find it difficult to distinguish between civilians and insurgents.

That doesn't explain why parasites too gutless to get close to the killing are allowed to profit from the killing of bad guys and good guys alike.

 

[xotoxi]

Gen. McChrystal allies, Rolling Stone disagree over article's ground rules

It was 2:30 Tuesday morning in Kabul, after a busy day of travel to Kandahar and meetings with top Afghan officials, when Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal was awakened by an aide with grim news.

"There's a Rolling Stone article out," the aide told McChrystal. "It's very, very bad."

Forty hours later, McChrystal had been relieved of his command, his 34-year military career in tatters. Apart from a terse apology, McChrystal has not discussed publicly the disparaging remarks that he and his aides made about administration officials and that appeared in the article.

On Friday, however, officials close to McChrystal began trying to salvage his reputation by asserting that the author, Michael Hastings, quoted the general and his staff in conversations that he was allowed to witness but not report. The officials also challenged a statement by Rolling Stone's executive editor that the magazine had thoroughly reviewed the story with McChrystal's staff ahead of publication.

The executive editor, Eric Bates, denied that Hastings violated any ground rules when he wrote about the four weeks he spent, on and off, with McChrystal and his team. "A lot of things were said off the record that we didn't use," Bates said in an interview. "We abided by all the ground rules in every instance."

A member of McChrystal's team who was present for a celebration of McChrystal's 33rd wedding anniversary at a Paris bar said it was "clearly off the record." Aides "made it very clear to Michael: 'This is private time. These are guys who don't get to see their wives a lot. This is us together. If you stay, you have to understand this is off the record,' " according to this source. In the story, the team members are portrayed as drinking heavily.

Neither McChrystal nor members of his staff have denied making any of the remarks quoted in the story, including a description of Obama as "uncomfortable and intimidated" in his first meeting with the general and a reference to national security adviser James L. Jones as a "clown."

Thoughts USMB? Did he say it off-the-record? Even if it was, should of he had said it?

The only way something is truly off the record is if you kill the person that you told it do.