Let's talk war.

[hackthis_archive]

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."

Comments

[romanticalgirl.livejournal.com]

The office I work with contains several liberals, a few conservatives and a social anarchist, so this was quite the discussion yesterday. I think I hit a lot of these points and got across to them the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" doesn't just apply to schedulers of womens' OB/gyn appointments, but to the POTUS. The thing that floors me is that McChrystal had PRIOR DOCUMENTATION of what a embedded reporter could do power-wise with Generation Kill, and he's at a higher level of command.

As my military father put it - "You chose this job and you do your fucking job. You don't bitch about it to anyone but the people who can change it and even then you don't bitch - you sell something better."

McChrystal is the scapegoat, the easy item to talk about rather than the stuff that truly needs to be addressed. People are dying for this. The military is sold on the "do it for your country" which means their tenet is that they're dying for us. If the top command can't fucking sell that, then something else of greater import is really really wrong.

[kindofdanceit.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the article yet and haven't yet read the bit you said you commented on a post before but my general idea about this whole thing is that they got a bit too relaxed around Hastings and let out stuff that shouldn't have left a tight circle. Or maybe they didn't give a damn? This could all come from me being always concerned about how what I say might come across to others and.

I also agree with Tom's "anything you hear inside my tent is off the record until you check it with us."

This was not how to end a career like McChrystal's.

[breakthecitysky.livejournal.com]

Howie Kurtz who does the media reporting at The Washington Post has a brief analysis that includes a short conversation with the reporter (who is a former Post staffer) that's worth a look [here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062301132.html)].

What frustrates me is that the uproar over the comments (which were stupid, and his staff knew better, he knew better, and he ended up painting Obama into a corner) really has overshadowed the real meat of the story. As you pointed out, the general's own troops aren't sold on this strategy, and if you don't have the men whose lives are on the line behind you then you should be gone anyway.

[knowledgequeen.livejournal.com]

Let me make certain I understand your opinion here, because I confess I'm not getting it - I understand that Gen. McChrystal's great sin, as you said, was insubordination, and when you're in his position, you toe the damn line. But what I'm not quite comprehending is your own position. You said Hastings' quotes were all derisory and imply he's an asshole. Okay, cool. Yet McChrystal coming out against the country's strategy is insubordinate. Does that mean you think the article was unfair, that McChrystal's feelings are irrelevant, that he never should have said anything, or all three? If McChrystal's men aren't buying what he's selling, that's a Big Fucking Deal. Does that mean you think his resignation/whatever were justified?

And the thing you quoted about being anti-war ... I'd probably be one of those wine-sipping Communist dick sucks, because I think we have no right whatsoever to be in Iraq (not sure about Afghanistan), and the idea of anyone preferring war to peace is utterly incomprehensible and more than a bit scary to me. But regardless of my opinion - what does that have to do with the general's essentially being sacked?

I'm not trying to pick a fight in any way; I'm genuinely trying to understand what you're saying, because you're clearly better versed in this than I am as the average layman. I think maybe I just have a case of the dipshits today.

[calico-jane.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to comment on the whys and wherefores of counterinsurgency tactics, the lack of faith of the troops in their commander or the lack of faith of that commander in his commander in chief.

However, I do have to say something about the article itself. I'm a cynical woman. I'm also an easy-going woman. And those two traits mean that very seldom do I become actually angry at anything I read. The very first page of this article, though, had me sputtering apoplectically into my keyboard.

"Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States."

Really. You say so? Fine, just ignore the nine thousand or so living British soldiers doing their duty in Afghanistan, ignore the three hundred dead British soldiers, ignore the Australians, the Canadians, the Albanians and every other country that contributes lives and equipment. But don't you dare, don't you dare, ignore the Afghans themselves. If one is so shockingly arrogant as to declare a propietary interest in an armed conflict, at least have the common sense and decency to acknowledge that the interest lies with the ordinary people whose country it is.

I confess that after that sentence, I found it difficult to read the article objectively, without my sudden and intense disdain for the journalist colouring my judgement.

My apologies for the rant, I just felt the need to vent.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I have not read the article, just seen news coverage and heard some discussions around the military hospital campus while there for a post-surgery checkup. The tenor was unsurprising: there is a generalized military distrust of the media, so this journalist has really just played into people's worst expectations, and that's definitely going to have repercussions in terms of what the average serviceperson shares with reporters, even if official policy doesn't change. Thus, McChrystal and his staff are held in contempt not only for the content of their remarks, but for not being more wary of the reporter in their midst. What is currently deemed unforgivable, though, is the absolute gutting of the morale of the troops on the ground, and the troops gearing up to go. Every active duty and dependent I know is horrified, because it's one thing to have doubts about the plan and about the leadership, but it's another thing to have the leadership openly deride the plan while expecting you to implement it and die for it.

I cannot even touch the apparently complete erasure of the people of Afghanistan from the consciousness of either journalist or general.

[maurheti.livejournal.com]

WORD.

One of my favorite responses so far is this one in Tom Ricks' blog. I'm especially fond of Baseball is always a good topic to discuss when drunk. I think that might need to be a t-shirt.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I've been following this like whoa and I keep saying to myself, dudes, what in the hell were you thinking: This is a reporter. This is a reporter. And I think it says something pretty telling about how journalism has been so compromised (starting with that embedded shit that the Bush administration instigated) and how pussy-whipped journalists in general are these days (Glenn Greenwald is probably popping some champagne corks as I type--he's been openly begging journalists to grow a few pairs for ages now) that they just didn't see this as a problem. Trash your Commander in Chief? No problem. Openly scorn the administration that went out on a limb for the strategy that YOU insisted on? WTF? It's nice to see SOMEONE FINALLY REPORTING WHAT IN THE FUCK IN GOING ON!

[happywriter06.livejournal.com]

My husband and I are currently in the Army and we have nephews in the Army so I read this article with great interest. I don't know what the reporter's intentions were going into this assignment. Given what happened, I'm not surprised the article wasn't more balanced and offered alternatives.

I do agree that McChrystal is a distraction. I'm not surprised. We deal in distractions now. We deal in putting on band aids on gaping wounds instead of making really fixing what's broken. The people in charge need to decide get their stuff together as far as Afghanistan.

I'm not conspiracy theorist but given the reality in Afghanistan, I wouldn't be surprised if the stuff that was said was said to a reporter on purpose. Or if that's not the case, this might be a good thing for McChrystal.

[alethialia.livejournal.com]

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.

This is where you lose me, so I am taking a page from your book and asking. You ding him for his performance here and yet I had the exact opposite reaction. He didn't have to go talk to these guys. He didn't have to take questions from the lowly enlisted. (And I mean duty-wise, he didn't have to; morally is a different matter.) But he did. He took time to talk to them directly and when they pushed back at him, he didn't bullshit them. It takes guts to go to your guys, look them in the eyes and tell them that you're sorry their buddy is dead, but you can't allow them to use lethal force, to kill more civilians, because that endangers the larger mission.

Because that's really what we're talking about. The guys were pissed that they can't use lethal force, drop bombs on the whole place, etc. McChrystal gets that, but also knows that if they do use more force - and kill more civilians, as always happens - then that endangers the larger mission. And he's willing to sit there and tell them that, straight up.

A lesser man would never have even gone. Why face those questions when you don't have to? He had nothing to gain from it, not really. I know it's a Marine saying, but he essentially had to sit there and tell the men that the mission came first and they came second and that's just how it had to be. That's a situation where there is literally no good choice. And yet he chose to put himself in front of those guys and face their anger.

So I'm confused by what you're saying here. This section of the article wasn't a transcript; for 45 minutes he did try to show them what they were doing was important. But he also couldn't give them what they want - the ability to use more force and thereby inadvertently kill civilians - so there was no good outcome to this meeting. What would you have had him do? What they want him to do jeopardizes the mission. Unless you're suggesting he should scrap the mission (i.e. COIN), I'm not quite sure how this could've gone any better.