Michael Hastings Is Dead

Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings has died in a car crash. In retropect, I felt that Hastings was rather hard on Gen. Stanley McChrystal. (I am guilty of this too.) Even Hastings article noted that McChrystal stressed to his troops to avoid civilian causalities in fire fights in Afghanistan. McChrystal set a terms of engagement that was controversial with the troops. also warned about the dangers of using drones to America's long-term international standing.

"What scares me about drone strikes is how they are perceived around the world," he said in an interview. "The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes ... is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated on a visceral level, even by people who've never seen one or seen the effects of one."

McChrystal said the use of drones exacerbates a "perception of American arrogance that says, 'Well we can fly where we want, we can shoot where we want, because we can.'"

Hastings often got into needless fights. One case being his email exchange with I have worked in media and this is not the kind of email you should send to a White House official. Hastings sent this email to Hillary Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines

From: Michael Hastings

Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 12:50 PM


To: Reines, Philippe I 
Cc: Nuland, Victoria J


Subject: Re: Request for comment 



Why don’t you give answers that aren’t bullshit for a change?

Hastings continually gets more abrasive with each email. I can't blame Reines for eventually telling Hastings to "fuck off."

On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:38 PM, Reines, Philippe I wrote:


I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you’re an unmitigated asshole. How’s that for a non-bullshit response? Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, have a good day. And by good day, I mean Fuck Off

I do respect Hastings' passion to get the story. If not necessarily his methods. This quote from Julius Caesar sums up my feelings on Hastings.

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar.

WTF: Stanley McChrystal Appointed to the White House

Gen. Stanley McChrystal was relieved of command after openly trash talking several Obama administration officials in Michael Hastings infamous Rolling Stone article. McChrystal people that the General did not have high regard for President Barack Obama's abilities as Commander in Chief.

According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by a roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

To make matters worse, McChrystal disparagingly spoke about Vice- President Joe Biden's and National Security Adviser January Jones on-the-record. The result was President Obama stripping McChystal of his command.

We now learn that Obama has appointed McChrystal to the White House position of overseeing military families. Why the President would reward McChrystal with a White House position makes no sense. It is as if Obama has an obsessive need to please people whom hold him in open contempt.

Another sourse of controversy for McChrystal is his handling of the death of former NFL player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman. The fact is Tillman was killed by friendly fire. McChrystal ruled that Tillman was killed in combat. The truth is the fire fight was started when an explosive went off. Tillman's unit did not engage enemy combatants.

McCrystal was well aware the true cause of Tillman's death. McCrystal wrote this memo.

McChrystal wrote to his higher ups to make sure that they knew the truth so as to "preclude any...public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public."

The Pentigon Inspector General reccommended disciplinary action. The Bush administration protected McCrystal and used executive priveledge to withhold details of Tillman's death.

Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, is outraged and wants McCrystal removed from the White House position.

"He deliberately helped cover up Pat's death and he has never adequately apologized to us for doing that," she says. "General McCrystal knew we were actively looking for answers. No one contacted us to try and square with us what had happened."

Money quote:

(Mary) Tillman says the president's appointment of McCrystal "makes him look foolish, frankly."

Amen.

Afghanistan Problems Go Up Chain of Command

President Barack Obama announced he was accepting Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation. I grew up in a military family. So, I wasn't surprised by the statements or behavior of McChrystal or his team in the Rolling Stone article. What struck me is the lack of faith in the chain of command. McChrystal has no confidence in the White House. The soldiers have zero confidence in McChrystal and the COIN strategy.

During the question-and-answer period, the frustration boils over. The soldiers complain about not being allowed to use lethal force, about watching insurgents they detain be freed for lack of evidence. They want to be able to fight – like they did in Iraq, like they had in Afghanistan before McChrystal. "We aren't putting fear into the Taliban," one soldier says.

"Winning hearts and minds in COIN is a coldblooded thing," McChrystal says, citing an oft-repeated maxim that you can't kill your way out of Afghanistan. "The Russians killed 1 million Afghans, and that didn't work."

"I'm not saying go out and kill everybody, sir," the soldier persists. "You say we've stopped the momentum of the insurgency. I don't believe that's true in this area. The more we pull back, the more we restrain ourselves, the stronger it's getting."

"I agree with you," McChrystal says. "In this area, we've not made progress, probably. You have to show strength here, you have to use fire. What I'm telling you is, fire costs you. What do you want to do? You want to wipe the population out here and resettle it?"

A soldier complains that under the rules, any insurgent who doesn't have a weapon is immediately assumed to be a civilian. "That's the way this game is," McChrystal says. "It's complex. I can't just decide: It's shirts and skins, and we'll kill all the shirts."

As the discussion ends, McChrystal seems to sense that he hasn't succeeded at easing the men's anger. He makes one last-ditch effort to reach them, acknowledging the death of Cpl. Ingram. "There's no way I can make that easier," he tells them. "No way I can pretend it won't hurt. No way I can tell you not to feel that. . . . I will tell you, you're doing a great job. Don't let the frustration get to you." The session ends with no clapping, and no real resolution. McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren't buying it.

The problem isn't McChrystal and Obama. They both wanted to place more troops in Afghanistan and have a more aggressive counter-insurgency strategy. The true problem is mission is not working. The Afghan people have no faith in President Hamid Karzai. Not without good reason: Karzai has been unable to create an Afghan military and police force. The Karzai regime has rigged an election and links to heroin distribution. At a certain point stay the course becomes insanity.

Update: Joshua Holland got the same message from the Rolling Stone article. Holland finds a depressing Obama quote I haven't seen before.

"There is no denying the progress that the Afghan people have made in recent years – in education, in health care and economic development," the president says. "As I saw in the lights across Kabul when I landed – lights that would not have been visible just a few years earlier."

Obama is sighting lights as progress. Americans can not walk safely in most of Afghanistan but aren't the lights pretty.