Gen McChrystal comments

[hp]

Guess the patriots haven't had anything to work with lately.

It is sad that in our country a military person cannot have an opinion that differs from the machine.

If they feel the need to fire this man, please fire half of the other government workers and administration appointees.

[Cogburn]

Did he really say all that he is attributed with?

Sources, Advisers and Aides, Oh My: The Flaws in Rolling Stone’s McChrystal Profile
By: Rayne Tuesday June 22, 2010 12:51 pm
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Take a close look at these excerpts from the ruckus-causing Rolling Stone profile of General Stanley McChrystal; do you see what I see?

Paris, as one of his advisers says, is the "most anti-McChrystal city you can imagine." The general hates fancy restaurants, rejecting any place with candles on the tables as too "Gucci." He prefers Bud Light Lime (his favorite beer) to Bordeaux, Talladega Nights (his favorite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard.

[snip]

"Who’s he going to dinner with?" I ask one of his aides.

"Some French minister," the aide tells me. "It’s fucking gay."

[snip]

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who’s that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

[snip]

According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass.

[snip]

"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." [emphasis mine]

"[O]ne of his advisers." "[O]of his aides." "[A] top adviser." "[S]ources." "[A]n adviser."

And no names.

These excerpts are from the first of six pages of the Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal; in these first 1,000 words there are at least four different unnamed sources who are permitted to set the tone of the next five pages of profile. McChrystal is able to directly express unhappiness about a formal dinner, make a wise assed comment about Vice President Biden; a speech he gave in October of 2009 is cited.

And that’s it, the stage is set in this first page by journalist Michael Hastings with the help of at least four unnamed sources. Go through the rest of the article and note how many quotes are not actually from McChrystal but from aides, staffers or sources who remain unnamed.

I will tell you readily that I have a lot of concerns about Gen. McChrystal; his work over the last nine years has been too frequently entwined with some iffy programs, much of it special operations-related. Because the special ops works are frequently wrapped up in special access programs which are opaque due to classification, it’s difficult to discern how deeply McChrystal is personally implicated in ops which include the use of rendition and black sites, let alone torture. For all we know he’s been stuck with the limitations of these super-secret ops and rogue elements within the military, intelligence and contract communities. We may never know short of strategic leaks to clarify what exactly has happened under McChrystal’s leadership, ultimately set in motion by Bush administration programs.

But putting aside questions about McChrystal’s personal history, I have to take issue with Hastings’ excessive use of unnamed sources. If they were in full support of McChrystal’s policies and his leadership, why are they accorded this kind of shielding? If they didn’t believe that McChrystal had done anything meriting punishment by the Secretary of Defense or the Commander-in-Chief, why are they hiding their identities? Why should we not know who is advising the man responsible for executing our military strategy in Afghanistan?

And why is the public so ready to snap up this piece without questioning the need for so many unnamed sources? The public went on a tear after reading a second-hand piece at Politico this morning, adding a filter over the Rolling Stone piece itself which Politico carried as a linked PDF since Rolling Stone hadn’t even yet published the article online.

Raise your hands: how many of you actually read the Rolling Stone article before making any judgment? How many of you read the Politico piece first and had an opinion without reading the original profile? And have you asked yourself why Rolling Stone which owned this story would let itself get scooped by Politico? Did anybody happen to notice the parallel between this piece and the Esquire profile of former Admiral William Fox Fallon which may have led to Fallon’s resignation?

I came away from the Rolling Stone article seeing three possible different scenarios:

– McChrystal is an arrogant fuck who’s pissed all over the POTUS shoes again – this time daring more than a dressing-down;

– McChrystal’s staff are a bunch of self-important assholes who are too chickenshit to own up to the picture they’ve painted and too stupid to realize they’ve set him up for cashiering;

– Somebody wants McChrystal cashiered – and it might be McChrystal himself, or it might be whomever encouraged Hastings to pursue this piece, or it might be some other entities busy at work and unnamed by unhelpful journalists.

These scenarios may or may not be mutually exclusive, they could overlap, and there could be other scenarios here I haven’t mentioned. What’s the truth, given how little we actually hear from McCrystal himself?

The other bit which bothers me, speaking as a former managing editor, is that Rolling Stone’s editors let this through without pushing back for more direct quotes and content from McChrystal himself instead of allowing so many unnamed sources stand in for the general. Why can’t we hear more from him directly instead of through other proxies who may or may not be on his side — or on our side? Whose agenda are we really hearing?

One aide has already resigned for setting up the profile with Rolling Stone; while noted briefly across the blogosphere and Twitter, there’s been little examination into this aide’s background and history with McChrystal let alone the rest of their experience in the military. Have there been any other recent, unnoticed changes in McChrystal’s staffing as well which have gone without investigation by journalists and observers?

Last September there had been rumors about the leaking of Gen. McChrystal’s report on Afghanistan to Bob Woodward (of all people!) in advance of its submission to President Obama. There had been some speculation about the nature of the leak — that McChrystal himself had not leaked it but that some personnel within the Defense Department close to McChrystal and sympathetic to the previous Bush administration had leaked it in order to pressure the Obama adminstration to speed up escalation in Afghanistan. There was a short burst of interest into the methodology of the leak, but the content of the report itself drew attention away from the leak. Since then we’ve heard nothing about the leakers.

Which might make one wonder if there is a systemic problem within the Defense Department, a pattern of going cowboy and doing whatever is desired rather than acting within a chain of command and in pursuit of policy established by the White House? Is this same contemptuous pattern of shooting from the hip and shooting off the mouth going to result in single dismissal or a major personnel change?

My gut tells me that only one guy will pay the price for what looks like a pervasive problem at the Defense Department.

And don’t think that the anti-gay slur by an aide or the pervasive deprecation of State Department hasn’t been noted; it’s right there in this same Rolling Stone article, exposed once again and without any notice by the mainstream media. Whose agenda is this, and who does it serve?

Perhaps there's more to this than meets the eye.

[hp]

It's obvious that politics will be made of it, whether that was the intent from the start.

What a great country, everything turns into a useless political debate. Why don't we just shut down the war...can't... to much money is going into someone's pocket. Plus it helps destroy many men who would eventually be part of the middle class.

[Cogburn]

Unless that blog I posted is misquoting the article, there wasn't an actual quote attributed to McChrystal.

[hp]

That is true. It is might be seen as hearsay but no one will.

This points out how important war is to this nation.

[Lexion]

Being in the Military, speaking of your
political views while in uniform is a big
no-no.

Your CiC is just that.

Kind of like telling your boss you think
he sucks.

Ok, to think it and talk about it at the
bar.....not to his face.

[hp]

We were talking about that here. Ironic that a country where freedom of speech (opinion) is a big deal, the military needs to stay mum. IMO, whispering about topics in the dark isn't a freedom.

[Lexion]

I guess you just don't get it.

[hp]

I understand.

But critical of my boss doesn't break a law, just my pay check.