How 'Rolling Stone' Got Into McChrystal's Inner Circle

How 'Rolling Stone' Got Into McChrystal's Inner Circle

It’s the kind of story that ricochets through Washington—and around the world—at lightning speed. "The Runaway General," published by Rolling Stone and written by former NEWSWEEK reporter Michael Hastings, recounts the misgivings of Stanley McChrystal (the commanding general in Afghanistan) and the closest members of his team about President Obama, French diplomats, civilian leaders in Afghanistan, and pretty much everyone. Immediately, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai proclaimed his support for the general. But calls are getting louder for his resignation. Obama has summoned the general to explain himself face-to-face in Washington. NEWSWEEK’S Andrew Bast talked by phone to Michael Hastings, still in Afghanistan, about his article and how it had turned Washington (and perhaps the war) on its head.

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One of the most vivid scenes in the stories comes when you are out with the general, his wife, and his team for a night on the town in Paris. His team is entirely forthright with you, did that surprise you?
Well, they were getting hammered, I don’t know at that moment if they were being the most forthright. Of course it was surprising. A lot of the reporting that is getting most of the attention happened right away in the first few days in Paris. So I was surprised—because they didn’t know me.

~snip~

You write that General McChrystal is perhaps closer than any American to Karzai. If the general goes, what does that do for the relationship between Washington and Kabul, and well, the future of the war?
You’d think it would be hard for the relationship between Karzai and Washington to get any worse, but obviously a change in generals is not going to help. Whoever it is, they would have to establish their own relationship. Gen. McChrystal and his guys take a pretty pragmatic view toward Karzai—he’s the only game in town. I assume any general is going to have the same problem, because the wheels are set in motion and coming up with a solution to deal with Karzai is one of the major issues.

Hope you're doing OK, my friend. :hi:

I'm pretty much full of rage at this point. I made this to take my mind off of wanting to beat the living shit out of Tony Hayward before making him drink a quart of BP crude, but so far it''s not working:

Not to the same degree as you're at right now, but I certainly am pissed.

Do you have something to say?

So make your point concerning the matter. Give reasons on why he wasn't in your eyes and any other points so we can judge them.

Granted, disrespectful towards a photo-op type dinner with French ministers, but still disrespectful.

There's also the Blackberry incident where he dissed some official upon receiving communication from him (I read the article 15 hours ago, so my memory is not fresh).

His description of his first encounter with the CiC, of Obama being nervous in the presence of military brass while "new to the job," while perhaps not profanely disrespectful, still is highly likely to erode respect for the President within certain circles, such as the troops. I would therefore say that such proffered comments are disrespectful to the office of POTUS. (Unless you seriously believe RS made up that description?)

Even allowing for the fact that his subordinates made the majority of the disrespectful wisecracks, I saw nothing in the article that McChrystal lifted a finger to discipline or otherwise control his subordinates. A general certainly wouldn't let his staff run their mouths in a potentially politically explosive manner like that, unless said general tacitly approved of the content of the remarks. This sort of failure-to-discipline, absent tacit approval, defies logic.

I've read the article (15 hours ago), but refrained from commenting because I mostly lurk here and seldom post anymore. However, I've seen identical posts from you on multiple threads, and worse yet, our conclusions from the RS article appear to be...drastically different, to put it mildly.

And McChrystal was the pick of Gates, no? The guy Obama met and didn't know who he was, according to the Rolling Stone story?

Is it any wonder that Afghanistan is the mess that it is?