Posted on 06/22/2010 6:00:49 PM PDT by DBCJR
General Stanley McChrystal and his staff spoke on the record and wanted to send a message to US President Barack Obama conveying their "frustration" with the Afghan war policy, the Rolling Stone article's author has said.
Michael Hastings, the journalist who spent weeks with the blunt-talking commander of US forces in Afghanistan, also told ABC News it became clear during his time with McChrystal and his team that "there are serious skeptics (about the war) in the highest levels of his staff."
McChrystal has been summoned to the White House on Wednesday to explain the article in which he and senior aides criticized and mocked top officials, including commander-in-chief Obama.
"I think they were frustrated with how the policy was going, and I think there was an intent on their part to get a message out about that frustration," Hastings told ABC.
"The headline for me is, the war is out of Obama's control. Obama does not have control over the war in Afghanistan. He doesn't have control over the policy, and the policy has serious issues," Hastings said.
The article has ignited a firestorm in Washington, and questions swirled as to why McChrystal and aides would have been so blunt in their assessments.
The magazine's executive editor Eric Bates insisted that "everything we published was on the record."
"We got a lot of stuff off the record and didn't use it. We respected all of those boundaries," he told CNN.
"These weren't off-the-cuff remarks by his staff he didn't know about."
Bates said the stunning profile, entitled "The Runaway General," was helped by the fact that the author was stranded with McChrystal and his entourage when their flights were canceled due to ash from an Icelandic volcano in April.
"One of the reasons we got so much access was Michael Hastings was with the general and his staff in Paris, and they got stranded by the volcano in Iceland and couldn't fly to Berlin and had to take a bus.
"So our reporter was on the road with him for a number of days, went out drinking with them, saw them preparing for speeches, saw them going to meetings and then also went to Afghanistan."
"We were really behind the curtain and hearing how the general and his top staff talk among themselves amidst this war. They are a close knit group," Bates said. "They are in the war and this is how they talk behind the scenes when they are blowing off steam by themselves."
Hastings told NBC News that McChrystal and his aides were drinking "the whole way" on the bus trip to Berlin.
"They let loose," Hastings told the network. "I don't blame them; they have a hard job."
Hastings had familiarity with the top echelons of the US military from reporting on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the past three or four years.
Hastings said McChrystal and his team were thoroughly aware that the reporter in their midst was using their quotes.
"There were no ground rules given to me. I had a tape recorder and notepad out the entire time," he told CNN by telephone from the Afghan city of Kandahar. "I think it was all very clear that it was on the record."
Hastings told ABC he attributed the shock statements to "a natural kind of recklessness that General McChrystal has, which has been with him through his entire career, as I understand it."
Bates said no one had asked them to pull the article, which he said was checked thoroughly by McChrystal's team, and he suggested its impact would be significant.
"These comments show a deep division, a war within the administration over the war itself and the strategy," he said.
"That war has been going on since the beginning over the troop escalation and continues very clearly between the military side and the diplomatic side, and it's very hard to see how we can win a war when we're divided ourselves."
Obama named McChrystal as commander in May 2009 to bring a fresh approach to the struggling Afghan campaign, but Hastings said the relationship "has been strained from the beginning."
"I think the frustration is that the president really believes in the mission in Afghanistan. That, I think, is at the root of the problem," he told NBC.
I would pay a lot of money for a tape of their meeting.
If I were McChrystal, I’d tell Zero to his face what a lousy excuse for a CIC he is, and that his policy of not offending anyone is getting our troops killed. Then I’d resign before he could fire me, give him a middle finger salute and leave.
I wish if General Mc was going to send a message via Rolling Stones why couldn’t he have said “This clueless thug doesn’t even have a birth certificate and he is pretending to be a commander in chief and living in the WH. Where in the heck is our Supreme Court? He is getting a lot of good men killed.”
As far as #2 concerned - it's Wilsonian “you lie” on much greater scale. I wish Obama were to resign, not the General.
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
Then why apologize?
The message was “Please fire me so I’m not remembered as the general who lost this unwinnable war!”.
Joe Wilson -- "You lie!"
Joe Barton -- "This is a shakedown!"
John Kyl -- "The president isn't protecting the borders because the issue is politically useful."
Gen. McChrystal -- "Obama is an idiot."
I would say that all of this is unprecedented. People need to wake up and realize how close we really are to rebellion.
The Community Organizer can’t stand to be told he’s a failure.
Unfortunately, if there is division among the military leaders then the war is lost. Way to go O’Bummer you screwed it up again!
Guys saying too much to a Rolling Stone writer on an alcohol-soaked cross-continent bus trip. It sounds like “Almost Famous”.
It certainly does sound like Suicide by Hack, doesn’t it.
Well Rolling Stones may be left wing but they sure didn’t do Obama any favors
Probably because if you read what Hastings said they are POed in that they think he wants to win this war
Wrong, the officers took an oath to uphold the US Constitution.
People are wondering why Rolling Stone was chosen. Rolling Stone is left-wing but in a traditional, old-school sense. They’re not communist left-wing. 2nd of all, RS is famous for these types of essays. Some of their essays and commentary are higher in standards than the NY Times. Finally, I think it’s good that the article is in a left-wing magazine rather than say, NRO or NewsMax. That means the left can’t ignore it.
This ball is 100% in Obama’s court, but McChrystal has the deck stacked, if I may mix metaphors.
Obama gets to make the call and he’s just about got to do it tomorrow. If he fires McChrystal it may cost him the Afghan war, and will certainly open him to criticism that he looks petty by running the risk of losing the war and Americna lives over a fit of anger. If he doesn’t, it reinforces the growing sense that Obama is incompetent, in over his head, and a laughingstock. Who could conclude otherwise if he allows his own top wartime General to make fun of him and his team and get away with it?
Can’t vote “present” on this one Barry. Choose and lose.
I agree! They all should resign and show the incompetent community organizer for what he is... not the commander in chief!
It appears there is wide spread disregard for him already among the military leaders. If so, that spells trouble for us as a nation! Even our allies dislike him.
Wrong, the officers took an oath to uphold the US Constitution.
BINGO!
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