It’s a lesson learned the hard way. When there’s a journalist around, Honey, just make sure you know WHEN to ZIP it!
Poor General Stanley McChrystal, America’s commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, it seems, sure learned the hard way. He was booted as America’s top commander in Afghanistan after Rolling Stone magazine published an article stuffed full of colorful quotes from the General. Bloomberg reports the General offered to resign over those comments and his criticism of US administration officials over their handling of the war in Afghanistan. He will now be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus who has been in charge of Iraq since 2007.
Now, if you have been living under a rock and wondering who the aforementioned Stanley McChrystal is (apart from being a Badass ), Rolling Stone magazine had this helpful description:
McChrystal is a snake-eating rebel, a “Jedi” commander, as Newsweek called him. He didn’t care when his teenage son came home with blue hair and a mohawk. He speaks his mind with a candor rare for a high-ranking official. He asks for opinions, and seems genuinely interested in the response. He gets briefings on his iPod and listens to books on tape. He carries a custom-made set of nunchucks in his convoy engraved with his name and four stars, and his itinerary often bears a fresh quote from Bruce Lee. (“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”) He went out on dozens of nighttime raids during his time in Iraq, unprecedented for a top commander, and turned up on missions unannounced, with almost no entourage. “The fucking lads love Stan McChrystal,” says a British officer who serves in Kabul. “You’d be out in Somewhere, Iraq, and someone would take a knee beside you, and a corporal would be like ‘Who the fuck is that?’ And it’s fucking Stan McChrystal.”
He carries a custom-made set of nunchucks in his convoy engraved with his name and four stars, and his itinerary often bears a fresh quote from Bruce Lee. (“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”)
Sure, Stan’s the man. But apparently, Stan seemed to have some trouble keeping his gob shut as Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings trailed him for his piece. With Hastings around, Stan’s spat out his disdain for Washington’s top officials–not even sparing Ol’ Barry Obama. Here’s what an aide told the mag:
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.”
Huffpo had more on the General’s open disdain for Richard Holbrooke, the official responsible for reintegrating the Taliban.
McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. “The Boss says he’s like a wounded animal,” says a member of the general’s team. “Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He’s a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can’t just have someone yanking on Shit.”
AND…
“Oh not another e-mail from Holbrooke,” [McChrystal] groans. “I don’t even want to open it.” He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.
“Make sure you don’t get any of that on your leg,” an aide jokes, referring to the e-mail.
The General also turns into a sulky child while on an official visit to Paris to talk to French allies and sell the Afghanistan plan to NATO.
“I’d rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner,” McChrystal says
He pauses a beat.
“Unfortunately,” he adds, “no one in this room could do it.”
With that, he’s out the door.
“Who’s he going to dinner with?” I ask one of his aides.
“Some French minister,” the aide tells me. “It’s fucking gay.”.
Sure, Gen. McChrystal, tell us how you REALLY feel. Obama was reportedly quite angry when he read the article. Dismissing the General, he however reitereated that it was just a change of personnel and not policy in Afghanistan. The war still continues.
Oh yes. The war in Afghanistan–anyone remember that?
