General McChrystal: military expert, political novice
Read the article that is taking American politics by storm and forced Obama to recall his top general in Afghanistan for a dressing-down. This is a quick conversion of a pdf, so it's a bit choppy-- the article isn't going to be officially released until Friday.
This is a a career threatening release for McChrystal. Besides being a political disaster- McChrystal insults Obama, Biden, and France, amongst others-- it calls into question his entire strategy, too. This also could be the article that renews debate about the Afghan war in America. Money quote (on strategy, you can get the political quotes anywhere):
...“The entire COIN [counterinsurgency] strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counter-insurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense. ”In the end, however, McChrystal got almost exactly what he wanted……
Today, as McChrystal gears up for an offensive in southern Afghanistan, the prospects for any kind of success look bleak. In June, the death toll for US troops passed 1,000, and the number of IEDs has doubled. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the fifth poorest country on earth has failed to win over the civilian population, whose attitude toward US troops ranges from intensely wary to openly hostile. The biggest military operation of the year – a ferocious offensive that began in February to retake the southern town of Marja – continues to drag on, prompting McChrystal himself to refer to it as a “bleeding ulcer.”
In June, Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history – and…those who support McChrystal and his strategy of counterinsurgency know that whatever the general manages to accomplish in Afghanistan, it’s going to look more like Vietnam than Desert Storm. “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win,” says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal. “This is going to end in an argument.”
Update: Rolling Stone rushed publication of the article, its now available here.
This is a a career threatening release for McChrystal. Besides being a political disaster- McChrystal insults Obama, Biden, and France, amongst others-- it calls into question his entire strategy, too. This also could be the article that renews debate about the Afghan war in America. Money quote (on strategy, you can get the political quotes anywhere):
...“The entire COIN [counterinsurgency] strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counter-insurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense. ”In the end, however, McChrystal got almost exactly what he wanted……
Today, as McChrystal gears up for an offensive in southern Afghanistan, the prospects for any kind of success look bleak. In June, the death toll for US troops passed 1,000, and the number of IEDs has doubled. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the fifth poorest country on earth has failed to win over the civilian population, whose attitude toward US troops ranges from intensely wary to openly hostile. The biggest military operation of the year – a ferocious offensive that began in February to retake the southern town of Marja – continues to drag on, prompting McChrystal himself to refer to it as a “bleeding ulcer.”
In June, Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history – and…those who support McChrystal and his strategy of counterinsurgency know that whatever the general manages to accomplish in Afghanistan, it’s going to look more like Vietnam than Desert Storm. “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win,” says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal. “This is going to end in an argument.”
Update: Rolling Stone rushed publication of the article, its now available here.
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