hackthis_archive | Let's talk war.

For those of you not living in the USA or just too far gone in your World Cup haze a few days ago Rolling Stone magazine posted an article they will be publishing in their upcoming issue about Gen Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal, for those who don't know, is the man in charge of US military operations in Afghanistan.

The article, The Runaway General, was written by Michael Hastings, a reporter who embedded with McChrystal's team (Team America, no really, that's what they call themselves) for a month.

Now I know this sounds mighty familiar to Generation Kill people, or anybody who watches the nightly news, but something a little different occurred when this article was published.

Probably because this article took a rather different slant.

There is a fabulous line in the GK mini-series where Ray talks about being misunderstood by the liberal anti-war faction, or as he puts it: Dear Frederick, thank you for your nice letter, but I am actually a US marine who was born to kill. Clearly you have mistaken me for some wine sipping communist dick suck and although peace probably appeals to tree loving bisexuals like you and your parents, I happen to be a death dealing, blood crazed warrior who wakes up every day just hoping for the chance to dismember my enemies and defile their civilization. Peace sucks a hairy asshole. War is the motherfucking answer..

This is a bit extreme, but it goes to point about the potential difference in mind set between people who spend their lives protecting their country and someone who would be considered "a wine-sipping communist dick suck" who is most vocally against this war.

But let's be straight. Reporters are not required to be impartial. They are not required to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They can say whatever they want as long as they've got the quotes to back them up. And Mr. Hastings did.

So when this article came out where McChrystal and Team America were reported to openly disagree and have derisory feelings toward his superiors, the people he runs OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) with, to be unable to muster support in his troops and perhaps have gotten away with things other people wouldn't get away with. Well. Things got real ugly.

Andrew Exum is smart. Repeatedly.

Nate Fick and Tom Ricks discuss the situation.

The LA Times breaks it down.

And all of this lead to a meeting with the White House. You can guess how that went down.

Stars and Stripes has a round up, of like, everything.

I've been following and discussing this clusterfuck with people pretty much since the story broke. I read the RS article a few days ago and was actually going to make a rather large post about it, but then that got into COIN and the troops and I just decided to save myself from further aggravation. My issues with the article are manifold for both better and worse.

1. It's clear that Hastings thinks COIN is a crock of shit and he's entitled to that, but at no time does he offer a better alternative. The tenor of his article was so full of disdain that for me a lot of reasonable points are being ignored because all anybody's talking about is McChrystal. The man ignored a BBM message; wow, bad behavior. So, let's be honest...

2. McChrystal's great sin was insubordination. Even if you don't agree with it, you toe the fucking line. You don't go around bad mouthing the entire administration whether you do it or your people do it as proxy. Like Nate pointed out, you are responsible for your men. You are responsible for keeping people in line. Hell, based on Article 88 (Thanks M!) he's lucky he didn't get court-martialed.

It really is like Tom quoted yesterday, "Different spanks for different ranks."

3. McChrystal's aids. Hastings was embedded for a month and all his quotes are derisory. He could have used positive quotes, but that wasn't the slant he wanted to take. That's his prerogative, but at no time is anyone quoted as having anything useful say. Does nobody there have something thoughtful to say*? At one point I told M I thought perhaps Ray was working for Team America. ("Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It's fucking gay.")

*Team America consists of, and I quote, "The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. Do you really expect me to believe not one person there had something thoughtful and incisive to say? Stop blowing smoke up my ass you're giving me gas.

4. I want to say I'm amazed at the access the reporter was given, but we've seen time and again (and I've read several books time again) that this is the new military. They welcome the press. They want civilians to know what's going on, to be informed. I wonder how this policy is going to change now based on what is pretty much the equivalent of an IED.

5. What really caused me to stroke out was page 5 where McChrystal goes to visit the troops and it's clear they are not buying what he's selling. These are your men. If you have to get down on your fucking knees to sell this, then you do it, because that is your job, to make them feel like what they are doing is important, that it matters. But no. He doesn't do it, and no story I've read has addressed this, because once again, the troops don't seem to matter and that shit pisses me off.

6. To me, this article could have explored some quality points about McChrystal's relationship with Karzai (dodgy); about COIN and all it's failings or successes (if those even exist); about how people are stuck on an antiquated concept of being able to "win" this war, or hell any war (not gonna happen); about what the people on the ground need to keep doing their jobs (a little fucking support would be nice), but because the whole thing is overshadowed by some seriously poor judgment (let's drink with the liberal dick suck reporter, who came to camp in a blue blazer and oxford - page 2, and talk as though he's not around) and a reporter with his own agenda (is there anybody you didn't throw under the Humvee besides Sec. Clinton) nobody will ever address these matters. And to me, that's the real loss in all this mess.

Thanks to

alethialia for inspiring me to actually get this down on print anyway and for providing the RS and NPR links so I didn't have to go digging through my email. Thanks to

maurheti for being my sounding board in all things military related and thanks to

serialkarma for being all, "Hey, your boy Nate is on my NPR."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You are not picking a fight or suffering from a case of the dipshits, at least as far as I am concerned. :) My opinion here would require about two days and a case of Kronenberg to fully dissect but I will try to address your questions as coherently as possible. I've addressed some of these in prior comments so there will be some cutting and pasting.

1. McChrystal's insubordination. General McChrystal is not an enlisted man, he is a four star general and when you are that high on the totem pole you have certain obligations. You have obligations to your men, to your president and to your stated objective. As I told

breakthecitysky: The fact of the matter is that when you are at this level you don't say shit like this, you just don't. You can think it all you want, you can yell in the shower and bitch to your reflection when you are shaving in the morning but you do not verbalize your doubts to a reporter from Rolling Stone and you do NOT let your men doubt you and the fucking strategic plan. McChrystal is not an enlisted man, he is not entitled to this sort of freedom. He gave that up for the stars on his uniform. So, to me, he threw this away with his cavalier attitude. That is upsetting and unfortunate. But that is his doing. The fact that the people who really going to suffer for it: the troops and the civilians in Afghanistan are totally being disregarded. That is unforgivable.

2. I do not think the article was unfair; I think the article was incredibly biased and one-sided. At no point was COIN given consideration or an alternative offered. No voice was given to what Team America was trying to do, but Rolling Stone is not required to do these things. Publishing a story like this is like posting something on the net, you say your piece and you don't have to engage anymore if you don't want to.

HOWEVER.

I feel like a huge opportunity was missed with this article. The article makes some very good points questioning the effectiveness of COIN, but nothing else is offered to replace it. It's explicitly stated that the troops on the ground are losing faith. People should be freaking the fuck out about THIS. People should be paying attention them, shoring them up. Not because they are pro-war or anti-war, but because you don't have to be for or against the war to appreciate the fact that we have an AVM (all volunteer military). These people have volunteered to be there to support this country, they need your support. They shouldn't suffer because the government or their superiors can't get their shit together. If you tear something down, you have to give alternatives. Or you *should* give alternatives. This article seemed to be all about tearing things down instead of building them up. These are things that should have been explored. It upsets me that they're not.

3. Do I think he needed to leave? Yes. Like Edward R Murrow said, "We must not confuse dissent is not disloyalty," but McChrystal was not dissenting, he was being openly disloyal. He was undermining the power of the president by fomenting a lack of faith.
I think this post from an Air Force Commander in The Best Defense covers my feelings very well (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/24/mcchrystal_the_teachable_moment). It's good to have a dialogue it is not good to have people openly undermining what you are trying to do. You can't have different spanks for different ranks :)

4. There is nothing wrong with being a wine-sipping communist dick suck. The quote resonated with me during the series and in the book, because the author of the book is pretty much a wine-sipping communist dick suck, and so were a few actors on the series and so am I. Except I'm more of a socialist but I like wine and I suck cock. I use the quote as an extreme point of view to show that there is a disparity between the writer and the subject and that there are many disparities between the General and the President or you and I or me and the men and women who are serving, but that sometimes these things need to be put aside to achieve something greater. That wasn't possible in that case. Or it would've been but now I feel the whole thing has been undermined.

As I told

romanticalgirl: I don't think McChrystal is a scapegoat I think he is a symptom of much MUCH bigger problems in the military, with these operations, with the administration and with the way the government operates as a whole, but you don't want me expounding for the next thirty minutes, trust. I think that McChrystal is a fucking distraction from the real issues though, chiefly for me, the fact that even the people on the ground aren't buying the moto shit and that they have doubts. And that upsets me.

And to sum this all up, that is my opinion, that this article could have achieved some serious things. That it raised some points that I truly believe need to be addressed, whether or not our counterinsurgency plan works and if not, then do we fix it or can we find something better. That our troops are suffering and not even the man in charge can make it better for them. I am upset and dismayed that these issues were brought up but that everyone has been so blind-sided by the McChrystal angle and the subsequent change in command that these things will never be addressed now.

Thanks very much for the time you took to clarify; as I said, I'm not nearly as well versed in this as I probably should be, and I definitely appreciate it.

While I'm emphatically against the war and want our troops home yesterday, as long as they're in the places they are, they deserve commanders and equipment that will permit that war to be fought in the best possible way. The Murrow quote is extremely apropos; dissent and disloyalty are not the same thing, and for that matter, dissent can be expressed in private. Disloyalty is pretty much when you do exactly what the General did - shoot your mouth off.

I understand the context of the quote now, and it does seem to go to what I just said - things have to be in place for the war to be fought in the best, most effective way possible as long as they're on the ground there (though they should be home already). One wonders what the troops' general reaction is to the "resignation" of McChrystal; I would be awfully curious to know it. I wonder if it makes the troops' general view more or less favorable to being in Afghanistan and Iraq or if it even makes a difference. I agree most of all with the point you had that I missed the first time - the troops are what matter here. They cannot be disillusioned; they cannot be left vulnerable. A lack of faith in the plan from so high up is a giant gimcrack of doubt going right into the brain of (almost) every soldier, in theory; while I'm obviously in favor of people having their own opinions, I'm not so sure I wouldn't just want to stick to the plan, were I in the military. The alternative would scare the piss out of me.

Clearly, I need to look into Generation Kill after the bar exam is over, and as for my personal drinking preferences, 'Guinness-drinking Communist dick suck' doesn't sound quite as good.

Edited 2010-06-24 21:27 (UTC)

You are in luck, someone I trust implicitly just sent me this. I haven't read it myself but this is a pull out quote.

* “I have a lot of confidence in Petreaus,” said one Marine gunnery sergeant in Marjah, who is on his eighth deployment, including four in Iraq. “If he can do what he’s done before (in Iraq), he’ll be like a god in people’s eyes. ... Either way, we know what we are doing tomorrow. The military is designed to be able to handle this. Tomorrow, our mission goes on.” (http://www.stripes.com/news/troops-in-afghanistan-react-to-mcchrystal-s-firing-1.108334)

Let's talk war.

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