Posts Tagged ‘Stanley McChrystal’
Gen. McChrystal to lead Obama program for military families
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who was relieved of command in Afghanistan after a magazine profile quoted his subordinates as disparaging senior civilian leaders, has been invited back to public service by the Obama administration to help oversee a high-profile initiative in support of military families, White House officials said Sunday.
General McChrystal will lead the three-member advisory board for the initiative, called Joining Forces, whose aim is to encourage companies, schools, philanthropic and religious groups and local communities to recognize the unusual stress that is endured by families of active-duty personnel, reservists and veterans, and to strive to meet their needs.
The appointment of General McChrystal, who commanded elite Special Operations units before taking over the mission in Afghanistan, can be seen as an effort to mend any perception of a civilian-military breach following his forced retirement.
Recognizing as well – perhaps – that a lot of folks here in the States felt the criticisms were legit.
More broadly, the new program is an acknowledgment by the administration that while the United States has been described as “a nation at war,” the burden of combat is carried by less than 1 percent of the population. The military has been fighting for almost a decade — since a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — the longest sustained era of conflict in the nation’s history. And unlike previous wars, these have been carried out by an all-volunteer force…
General McChrystal, in a telephone interview on Sunday, noted that a decade of combat carried out by a relatively small military force “has required a lot of sacrifice by families.”
“This program will be a chance to focus people’s attention on ways they can help, and on the importance of helping, and provide opportunities for people to find practical things to do to support military families,” he said…
Since leaving the military, he has been teaching at Yale University and making the rounds on the lecture circuit. He said Sunday that the Obama administration’s invitation to return to public service should be seen as proof to those in uniform, and to the American public, that there were no hard feelings on either side of the civilian-military divide.
Poisonally, I think one of the triggers that presaged this decision by the Obama White House was Stan McChrystal’s recent appearance at the TED conference. His talk about leadership certainly conveyed to me a growth in understanding about the separation of responsibilities between civilian and military divisions in our government.
Certainly sharper than any understanding among most in Congress.
Stanley McChrystal bids farewell to army life
Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended his 34-year career as an Army officer Friday in an emotional retirement ceremony at his military headquarters in Washington, D.C., marking the last chapter of his swift and stunning fall from grace.
Before a crowd of a few hundred friends, family and colleagues on the Fort McNair parade grounds under an oppressively hot July sun, McChrystal said his service didn’t end as he hoped. But he regretted few decisions he had made on the battlefield, cherished his life as a soldier and was optimistic about his future, he said.
“I trusted and I still trust,” McChrystal said. “I cared and I still care. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan was fired last month after Rolling Stone magazine published an article titled “The Runaway General” that quoted scathing remarks he and his aides made about their civilian bosses…
Shortly after the article was published, McChrystal was sent packing…
McChrystal also sounded a more serious note, when he talked about the pain of leaving behind unfulfilled commitments in Afghanistan and watching colleagues ensnared in the scandal…
Still, he said he was approaching the future with optimism…
Soldiers attending the ceremony were allowed to forgo their formal dress uniforms in lieu of combat fatigues — an apparent tribute to a war commander fresh from battle and whose career was marked by more secret operations to snatch terror suspects than by pomp and circumstance.
Wearing his own Army combat uniform for the last time, the four-star general received full military honors, including a 17-gun salute and flag formations by the Army’s Old Guard.
RTFA. A modicum of interest and insight.
As much as I support the precedence of civilian control over the military, Stan McChrystal will be missed in this household. As much of my life as I spent afoot, in the field and in political war zones opposing the imperial uses of American military might – I will miss a good soldier who understood 4th Generation warfare and the commitment to civilian needs required by that understanding.
I haven’t saluted a general since the days of Omar Bradley and Georgii Zhukov. I salute Stanley McChrystal.
We must operate…in a fundamentally new way in Afghanistan
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan says the coalition in the war-torn country is going to have to do things “dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently” in order to succeed.
“We must operate and think in a fundamentally new way,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think thank. He stressed the importance of connecting with the Afghan people, who he said are “frustrated” that more has not been accomplished in the nearly 8-year-old war.
McChrystal said he discounts immediately those who simplify the problem or offer a solution “because they absolutely have no clue about the complexity of what we are dealing with…”
Afghanistan, McChrystal said, is a “complex, difficult terrain — both the land and the people.”
“When I’m asked the question what approach should we take in Afghanistan, I say humility,” he said.
The average life expectancy there is 44 years, McChrystal noted. And given that the country has been at war for 30 years, there are few people who remember pre-conflict life in Afghanistan, he said…
US advisor says we’ll start to leave Afghanistan in two years
I’ve been looking at this article all day wondering what to make of it. Part of the reticence flows from not knowing much about David Kilcullen. If he was 10 or 20 years older we might have crossed paths somewhere well away from bureaucrats and their nonsense. Not so, though.
I’ve found and read a few articles about him since I snipped this from DAWN, this morning. This one by George Packer for the NEW YORKER is probably the best background all-rounder.
So, read on -
David Kilcullen, a counter-insurgency expert who will assume a role as a senior adviser to Gen Stanley McChrystal, has been highly critical of the war’s management to date. He outlined a ‘best-case scenario’ for a decade of further US and NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan during an appearance at the US Institute of Peace on Thursday.
Under that timeline, the allied forces would turn the corner in those two years, followed by about three years of transition to a newly capable Afghan force and about five years of ‘overwatch’.
‘We’ll fight for two years and then a successful transition, or we’ll fight for two years and we’ll lose and go home,’ Mr Kilcullen said…
Mr Kilcullen was speaking for himself, and it is not clear that Gen McChrystal shares his dark assessment. Gen McChrystal is assembling what aides describe as a blunt summing up of a war his predecessor called a stalemate. That review is due within weeks and may lead to a request for additional US forces beyond those President Barack Obama has already sent to Afghanistan this year.
Top U.S. general in Afghanistan gets the sack
The new guy – Gen Stanley McChrystal
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
The US defence secretary has asked the country’s commander in Afghanistan to step down, saying the battle against the Taleban needs “new thinking”.
Robert Gates confirmed Gen David McKiernan would effectively be sacked less than a year after taking command. He will be replaced by Gen Stanley McChrystal, who is seen as having a better understanding of the conflict.
The change comes as the US boosts troops numbers in Afghanistan and prepares for a change in strategy…
Gen McChrystal was in charge of Joint Special Operations in Iraq. His forces were involved in the capture of Saddam Hussein and the killing of al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Robert Gates has refused to explain why he lost faith in Gen McKiernan. But both he and President Obama have often repeated that the war in Afghanistan will not be won with military strength alone…
Gen McChrystal is reported to have adopted an approach of “collaborative warfare” – relying on communication intercepts and human intelligence as well as military force…
Correspondents say Gen McChrystal is a specialist in the kind of counter-insurgency strategy the Obama administration plans to implement in Afghanistan.
Though I haven’t access to the intel that prompts re-examination, my opinion about 4th generation warfare apparently coincides with Gates’ – nowadays.
There is an abundance of study and strategy offered by the best minds at the U.S. War College supporting this kind of change. Including what sort of armed forces we need for a world beyond the Cold War mentality of mutant primates like Cheney.
