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Stan McChrystal
Jun. 27th, 2010 04:43 pmIf you read one magazine article on the war in Afghanistan this month, this is a good one to pick. It's a bit long, and filled with bias, but also very entertaining, interesting, informative, and thought provoking:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236
Earlier this week, before the article came out publicly, I heard that McChrystal was called into the Oval Office to defend himself and explain the article to Obama. My first thought was, "What is this, 5th grade? If you say nasty things behind the teacher's back, you get sent down to the principle's office... but I guess if you're a 4 star General and you get drunk with a bunch of guys from Rolling Stone and make a few inappropriate remarks, you get sent down to the oval office?" I hadn't seen the article, but I felt fairly sure Obama would just give him a stern lecture and send him back to Afghanistan to finish the job. I was surprised and had to re-evaluate my assessment when I learned a day or two after that the outcome of the Oval Office meeting was his resignation and replacement by General Petraeus. Now that I've finally read the article, I find myself questioning Obama's wisdom in replacing him again.
There were a lot of lines I considered quoting from the Rolling Stone article, but there's too much there to focus on any one thing. I'll just make some general comments.
I suspect that Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone constructed a lot of the narrative here, painting both McChrystal and Obama in a particular light deliberately, and selecting choice comments from him and his top aides that fed into the defiant "runaway general" narrative. But still, he provides enough anecdotal support for that narrative that it's hard to imagine it's not at least half true.
It sounds like Stan apparently has always been rebellious, and was quite the troublemaker at West Point... always having a bit of a problem with authority, and wanting to do things differently than his superiors wanted, modernizing tactics, etc. I found myself wondering whether that's the worst kind of person to have in the military or the best kind. Either way, it's pretty interesting.
Rolling Stone I think has traditionally leaned towards an anti-war stance, so a lot of the article seems a bit slanted towards criticizing the futility of the war. McChrystal himself, on the other hand, they actually paint as seemingly a pretty awesome guy. Reading the article, not only do I find myself admiring him for his rebellious spirit and his tendency for saying whatever is on his mind rather than being polite. But I also find myself admiring and sympathizing with him on doing what appears to have been a top-notch job on the very difficult problem of trying to minimize civilian casualties. Perhaps the most interesting part to me is hearing how hostile some of his subordinates are to him, because of his strict "don't shoot unless you're absolutely sure it's not a civilian" policy. According to a lot of his men, this policy of his puts all of their lives in danger. While I think there is something to be said for both sides there, I really sympathize with the difficult task he must face in having to convince them that it's worth it to be careful, even if it puts your own life in danger. I cannot imagine having a job that stressful, or having to walk that fine of a line every day while getting yelled at from both sides of the fence for causing deaths due to opposite mistakes. I also tend to suspect that the dehumanization effect tends to bias soldiers towards thinking it's more insane than it is to ask them not to shoot first and ask questions later... so *probably* McChrystal is in the right here. Of course, these are the kinds of decisions that you can never know for sure... you just have to pick something that feels right, I guess, and go with it.
There was a Rolling Stone article only shortly before this one, which attacks Obama and blames him for "causing" the BP oil spill. So Rolling Stone seems to be pretty hardcore anti-Obama lately. I still question Obama's wisdom in replacing McChrystal, because it sounds like the real enemy/critic of the Obama administration is Michael Hastings and Rolling Stone, not Stanley McChrystal. Hastings from what I can tell, mostly just used a few of McChrystal's frustrations to attack Obama and call into question the entire point behind the war. Nevertheless, I can see how having an article like that out calls for a definitive response. Perhaps politically, it was the only move he could make. Or, perhaps there is more wrong with McChrystal than we know about.
Actually, there was one big negative thing in there about McChrystal... his apparent active involvement in covering up a case of friendly fire. So if you believe Rolling Stone, perhaps his motivation for being so strict about rules of engagement is more to minimize negative *publicity* surrounding civilian casualties, rather than to minimize the casualties themselves. This is disturbing, if true. But again, it's hard to tell.
Maybe Rolling Stone is right, and the war in Afghanistan is, like Vietnam and to some extent Iraq, the kind of war we can never win... and it will just drag out longer and longer, needing more troops at each stage. But given their bias, I don't necessarily know whether to buy that. Maybe we have already made a difference. Maybe we have already made progress, despite their dismissal of the word "progress" as a poor substitute for "victory". And perhaps it is easier to pull out from there in a reasonable timeframe than it was from Iraq, because the region is not quite as unstable? I wish I knew more about this. I do feel a bit worried though, that maybe McChrystal is right, and Joe Biden is wrong... namely, that this is not a war we can "win" in a short time and then just go home. I really wonder what general Petraeus's thoughts are on this.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236
Earlier this week, before the article came out publicly, I heard that McChrystal was called into the Oval Office to defend himself and explain the article to Obama. My first thought was, "What is this, 5th grade? If you say nasty things behind the teacher's back, you get sent down to the principle's office... but I guess if you're a 4 star General and you get drunk with a bunch of guys from Rolling Stone and make a few inappropriate remarks, you get sent down to the oval office?" I hadn't seen the article, but I felt fairly sure Obama would just give him a stern lecture and send him back to Afghanistan to finish the job. I was surprised and had to re-evaluate my assessment when I learned a day or two after that the outcome of the Oval Office meeting was his resignation and replacement by General Petraeus. Now that I've finally read the article, I find myself questioning Obama's wisdom in replacing him again.
There were a lot of lines I considered quoting from the Rolling Stone article, but there's too much there to focus on any one thing. I'll just make some general comments.
I suspect that Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone constructed a lot of the narrative here, painting both McChrystal and Obama in a particular light deliberately, and selecting choice comments from him and his top aides that fed into the defiant "runaway general" narrative. But still, he provides enough anecdotal support for that narrative that it's hard to imagine it's not at least half true.
It sounds like Stan apparently has always been rebellious, and was quite the troublemaker at West Point... always having a bit of a problem with authority, and wanting to do things differently than his superiors wanted, modernizing tactics, etc. I found myself wondering whether that's the worst kind of person to have in the military or the best kind. Either way, it's pretty interesting.
Rolling Stone I think has traditionally leaned towards an anti-war stance, so a lot of the article seems a bit slanted towards criticizing the futility of the war. McChrystal himself, on the other hand, they actually paint as seemingly a pretty awesome guy. Reading the article, not only do I find myself admiring him for his rebellious spirit and his tendency for saying whatever is on his mind rather than being polite. But I also find myself admiring and sympathizing with him on doing what appears to have been a top-notch job on the very difficult problem of trying to minimize civilian casualties. Perhaps the most interesting part to me is hearing how hostile some of his subordinates are to him, because of his strict "don't shoot unless you're absolutely sure it's not a civilian" policy. According to a lot of his men, this policy of his puts all of their lives in danger. While I think there is something to be said for both sides there, I really sympathize with the difficult task he must face in having to convince them that it's worth it to be careful, even if it puts your own life in danger. I cannot imagine having a job that stressful, or having to walk that fine of a line every day while getting yelled at from both sides of the fence for causing deaths due to opposite mistakes. I also tend to suspect that the dehumanization effect tends to bias soldiers towards thinking it's more insane than it is to ask them not to shoot first and ask questions later... so *probably* McChrystal is in the right here. Of course, these are the kinds of decisions that you can never know for sure... you just have to pick something that feels right, I guess, and go with it.
There was a Rolling Stone article only shortly before this one, which attacks Obama and blames him for "causing" the BP oil spill. So Rolling Stone seems to be pretty hardcore anti-Obama lately. I still question Obama's wisdom in replacing McChrystal, because it sounds like the real enemy/critic of the Obama administration is Michael Hastings and Rolling Stone, not Stanley McChrystal. Hastings from what I can tell, mostly just used a few of McChrystal's frustrations to attack Obama and call into question the entire point behind the war. Nevertheless, I can see how having an article like that out calls for a definitive response. Perhaps politically, it was the only move he could make. Or, perhaps there is more wrong with McChrystal than we know about.
Actually, there was one big negative thing in there about McChrystal... his apparent active involvement in covering up a case of friendly fire. So if you believe Rolling Stone, perhaps his motivation for being so strict about rules of engagement is more to minimize negative *publicity* surrounding civilian casualties, rather than to minimize the casualties themselves. This is disturbing, if true. But again, it's hard to tell.
Maybe Rolling Stone is right, and the war in Afghanistan is, like Vietnam and to some extent Iraq, the kind of war we can never win... and it will just drag out longer and longer, needing more troops at each stage. But given their bias, I don't necessarily know whether to buy that. Maybe we have already made a difference. Maybe we have already made progress, despite their dismissal of the word "progress" as a poor substitute for "victory". And perhaps it is easier to pull out from there in a reasonable timeframe than it was from Iraq, because the region is not quite as unstable? I wish I knew more about this. I do feel a bit worried though, that maybe McChrystal is right, and Joe Biden is wrong... namely, that this is not a war we can "win" in a short time and then just go home. I really wonder what general Petraeus's thoughts are on this.
