Written by Kay B. Day
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Published on TheUSReport.com
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 09:06AM
by Kay B. Day
Rolling Stone’s advance of an article with controversial remarks by Gen. Stanley McChrystal about President Barack Obama’s prosecution of the war will be on the screen for days to come. Apparently the general opened up to a freelancer and held little back when it came to deriding vice-president Joe Biden and ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry. Eikenberry retired from the US Army as a Lieutenant General.*
But war correspondent Michael Yon had begun to ask questions about the leadership in Afghanistan weeks ago.
The Washington Post said McChrystal “is quoted in an upcoming profile in Rolling Stone magazine as saying that Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, had ‘betrayed’ him by sending a diplomatic cable to Washington last fall dismissing Karzai as ‘not an adequate strategic partner.’ The cable came as McChrystal was recommending that President Obama increase U.S. forces and ties with the Afghan government.”
Long before Rolling Stone published the story, war correspondent Michael Yon had also levied criticism at McChrystal. Yon came under fire from some milbloggers for his dispatches, and at least one military blog came close to character assassination because of what Yon wrote about McChrystal.
Yon has consistently turned out major stories about the war that others missed, such as the Canadian Brigadier General who not only fired his weapon negligently but also was accused of having an affair with a female staffer. The military and media lagged in that coverage.
Yon also pinpointed a serious blunder that left a vital bridge unsecured in Afghanistan, leading to deaths and injuries for soldiers and civilians.
In a dispatch on Yon's Facebook Fan Page where approximately 35,000 fans read his posts, he wrote: “If a Colonel under General McChrystal's chain of command publicly dismissed General McChrystal in a major magazine, McChrystal would be forced to fire him or appear weak and not in control.”
The military doesn’t take kindly to public criticism that runs bottom to top.
Apart from Yon, however, many conservatives have been troubled by the prosecution of this war in accordance with demands from the left and from media, and complaints about the dilution of the Rules of Engagement have been vocal in some quarters. Troop deaths rose sharply this year in Afghanistan, but national media, sympathetic to Obama, rarely make note of that. When President George W. Bush was in office, however, troop deaths were noted daily and above the fold.
A general feeling among national security conservatives is that even before Obama took office, leftwingers and allied media had actually prolonged the war and endangered troops just as they did during the Vietnam era. Another general feeling is that Obama lacked the experience to manage the war, even if his Democrat political base would permit it. The president is already behind the timetable he claimed he’d meet on troop withdrawal during his campaign.
Perhaps as a result of the attention Yon receives from branded media and from fans, it’s fathomable why some bloggers would launch personal attacks.
It appears Yon’s criticism of the general was prophetic. Yon also wrote on Facebook: “Unless McChrystal basically denies the article, he must be fired. If he is not fired, I will start calling him President McChrystal because Obama clearly is not in charge.”
Obviously Yon was ahead of the curve.
Yon’s embed was recently canceled and he has been filing dispatches from Thailand. His widely acclaimed book ‘Moment of Truth in Iraq’ has just been released in paperback.
[Ed. Note: Yon actually began to crit the general sometime in April.]
[Correction: Thanks to my readers I have corrected Eikenberry's rank! Sorry about the unintentional demotion.]
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Comments
If we must be at war, then let the men fight. And give them everything they need. If there is an enemy, then either defeat him, or don't And no war is won by 'not killing anyone'. The lunacy and stupidity of this hearts and minds garbage that totally failed in Vietnam and is failing at a steeper rate here is a lesson in history. Further, All NATO countries have to be called to account. 3000 helicopters in Europe alone, yet the brits have been short for years. A handful fight while others shirk and stand around avoiding the scrap in the shadows.
As for the Taleban, you have to cut all their sources of funding and weapons off at the knees. And by that I mean you eliminate the sources by any means required. And this includes eliminating funds collected in western countries in the mosques being fed to the Taliban to kill our men. And it means an immediate end of our enemy from operating in our countries, so Saudi Wahhabist political and financial activity and 'conservative' support and funding for radical islam being clobbered in every single area. An immediate end in double play with Pakistan. Handing huge funds to them while their ISI support and supply the Taliban is not and will not be a winning operation.
In addition, you'll only control the ground you stand on in foreign territory. Therefore, more men and machinery - enough to dominate the ground and leave the taliban with only the ground they stand on.
And the raw truth, is that if we cannot or will not commit enough to win this 'war', then don't fight it. Its a waste of precious resource and our finest people and its being wasted by diabolically poor leadership.
McChrystal disagrees with being hamstrung by armchair wannabes in the rear. Sounds like how LBJ tried to run Vietnam.
Yon disagrees primarily with McChrystal's rules of engagement, which hamstring the troops on the ground and will result in further casualties and fewer bad guys removed from the equation.
Obama disagrees with being compared to LBJ because of the inevitablility of how his presidency will end in that case. And then continues to do exactly what LBJ did.
Sounds to me like most folks should go back, review how ill-prepared LBJ was to attempt to micro-f@#$ a military operation, then compare Obama's relative lack of governmental experience to LBJ's, then decide what qualifications Obama has to micro-f@#$ McChrystal.
COIN is long-term, it is ugly, it refuses to respond nicely to the news cycle or the election cycle, and it will NEVER work well when the imposer refuses to address the actual centers of influence and power of the impose-ee. Obama and the rest of the civilized world need to decide to accept this basic tenet, or alternatively, to pull out, wall the place up, and prepare to intercept every mud-covered POS that exits the country as a potential next suicide killer headed for our shores.
Keep it up, Michael, you are still contributing remotely.
Mr. Yon, I am afraid I must apologize. When you first started criticizing McChrystal, I am afraid that I was suspicious and not trusting of the validity of your concerns. After being kicked out by the British and then by McChrystal, I was afraid that you had gone over the deep end. I was sure that you had some valid criticisms, but your sudden assertion that we would lose the war and your seemingly fantastic predictions led me to believe that you had been pushed a bit too far. What I thought you needed, most of all, was a long vacation and a pinch of perspective.
That being said, I am sorry to admit that I lost interest. In a longer than usual intermission between articles I took my leave of this site and never returned. Then, when I heard of this article with Rolling Stones, I remembered your complaints. Once again, Mr. Yon, you showed a near prescient ability to see the perils and predicaments in the future. Once again, you saw what no one else did months in advance.
I am sorry that I doubted you. I am sorry that I forgot how you see more than many and with clearer sight than most. But that is in the past. This is the future, and I am certainly not sorry to say that it looks like I have a lot of catching up to do here. As the double edged Chinese proverb and curse goes, may you live in interesting times, and may you always have your camera ready and an internet connection nearby.
nobody must forget that McChrystal had an input into the Tillman Affair, and the citation for his posthumous medal. Tillman was killed by 'friendly fire' and not as a result of enemy action. I think that there have long been questions about this man who is unfit for purpose. He should be sacked, and not allowed to resign.
Sack him and put Gen MATTIS USMC in charge.
but none of this can happen because in umerika you're either a dumb, ignorant, hypocritical left wing nut or a dumb, ignorant, hypocritical right wing nut. the republicans would love to shout down the president that 'lost' the war, even if they agree that the US should get out. They'll wear flag pins and dine with soldiers, but don't care if they die for no reason, or for republicans to win. The ones that actually agree that there's a war to fight, those poor things are just too dumb to know anything.
Obama's an left wing idiot, but he's governing 300 million idiots that have more power than him. So he can't do any sensible thing.
The US operation has clearly run aground, apparently through incompetence and politics. But what will happen if Afghanistan is left to the Taliban? Most here appear to think (as do I) that Karzai isn't going to be able to stem the ensuing backlash: Afghanistan will revert rapidly to the mess it was in before, and Al Qaeda will have a free rein there once more --- something which, rightly or wrongly, most in the West can live with. But what about the broader ambitions of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?
So much focus is on the wannabe nuclear power on Afghanistan's Western border, yet too few people seem bothered about the increasingly wobbly already-there atomic power on its Eastern border --- the atomic power beset by surging radicalism, which finds it ever harder to form a stable government. The Taliban will try to win Pakistan. If they do, what exactly could the West do against a terror-sponsoring jihadist state with a nuclear umbrella and a global reach? Afghanistan is now not primarily about Afghanistan (if ever it was): it's primarily about Pakistan.
No doubt Israel will deal with the Shi'ite bomb. But who will deal with the Sunni one?
I think this is true of the majority of intellectuals these days. The US's isn't much better. There are a few bright spots out there, but few. You also put forth the question, "what will happen if Afghanistan is left to the Taliban." To me, there is a fairly stright forward result. First, the Taliban will once again gain control. Karzai is alredy, from some things I've read, trying to release some and make them part of Afghanistan again. So, he's already making nice with them. I suspect he's trying to solidify his position for when the pull out is expected to happen. So, the Taliban, and Jihadists in general, win a political victory. They also gain clout/leverage because their, "way," worked, seeing them return to political power. Next, because their, "determination and will to fight the Great Satan," will be seen and popularized by the majority of Islamists. It will be shown that, "staying the course, creating hope and change through Jihad," is working. Then they'll thump their chests and claim it was Arab power, people of the great umma, that defeated the Western devils. They will then call for more fighters, getting them since it's obvious that the US and it's evil ilk can be defeated by, "resistance." It will be trumpted all over the Sunni realms, plus probably other smaller ummas, and give organizations leverage to help run other geopolitical areas as they see fit. The US and allies will lose clout, look even more like the, "weak horse," and start an even greater slide into stupidity. I'm sure several people will come forward and say that we just weren't nice enough and that's why it failed. After all, Appeasement to dictatorships has always worked. It worked for Hitler. Just don't tell any one it took a war to stop him though. You might upset their sensetivities.
Any way you slice it, it's win/win for Islam and their brand of terrorism.
I'm willing to leave the war to the experts while journalist relax with their beers and laptops
pondering how world events would evolve if only they were in charge.
Yeah, you're probably right. The soi disant free-thinkers all think as one when it comes to America and its imperialism and warmongering and its obsession with guns and blah, blah blah...
"When a blogger earns his rank in the military, he may have some credibility."
Something along those lines came to mind when I read the Rolling Stone article: particularly the writer's pathetic shots at Petraeus. ...But then the media and the political Left wanted him to fail in Iraq because he was Bush's last great hope. Some of them appear to resent him still, for succeeding with the surge they all mocked so scornfully and hoped would be the final nail in the Bush coffin. (I'm no apologist for Bush: I just remember the cynical and potentially dangerous idiocy of the anti-Bush partisans, the media and the whole Tinseltown set --- how they clearly *wanted* Iraq to turn into another Vietnam.)
God willing, Petraeus will get things on track in Afghanistan too.
...And here's hoping Michael gets an embed with him.
McChrystal wasn't let go because of poor strategy, or because he was "in over his head." He got let go because he was too openly critical in the presence of the media. That doesn't sound like what Yon wrote about him. That sounds almost like the opposite of what Yon wrote about him. Just pointing out the 800 lb gorilla in the room while everyone lauds Yon for having a McChrystal ball.
I would not expect the sand on the boots to adopt a policy that I were not willing to face myself on the front line. It limits the time line of the conflict, limits the recruitment of foot soldiers to the Talib, thus in the long term it actually reduces the level of coalition KIA. It isolates the Taliban and makes their shadow government (dual system) which is designed to undermine and overthrow the Afghan Government not an alternative to the Afghan Government, this puts them in a weaker position when it comes to negotiations, they are forced to integrate into the established Government system.
As security is gradual increase over the coming years the Taliban will be forced from this 'dual system' into compartmentaliz ed cells further isolating them from the population. A rural insurgency is reliant on the support of the population and the tactile silence to their operations. The Taliban can no longer be seen as a legitimate form of resistance protecting the population from coalitions forces, because the Taliban can no longer take civilian support for granted they have increased their attacks on the civilian population, which further isolates them and places them in a weaker position when it comes to negotiations, as the cannot be seen in representing the population, they only represent themselves as an insurgent faction, not a popular legitimate resistance to the Afghan Government.
The delay in the Kandahar offensive has worked to our advantage as from Karzai's first visit, the Taliban tactics of terrorizing the population lead to local support for the operation on Karzai's second visit. The Taliban are slowing isolating themselves from their support base in their heartland. The fact they have to bring in suicide bombers from outside of Marjah shows they are losing indigenous support.
The results of the COIN strategy are a direct reason why Pakistan is try to do a deal and bring Haqqani in, because we are going to win and they know it and they believe they cannot get a better outcome, otherwise they would wait, they are acting in their own strategic interest not to help ISAF or the Afghan Government.
We have only got started we are one year into the 5 year plan. The outcome to the mission is containment of the Taliban, as it was in Iraq over insurgents, this means the success of the mission is not reliant on negotiations with intractable insurgents for success. The ANSF will be able to continue the containment policy as the Iraqi Security Forces are doing.
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