Posts by Spencer Ackerman

“This is a change in personnel,” President Obama said, announcing Gen. David Petraeus’ takeover of the Afghanistan war, “but not a change in policy.” Yes and no.

The cashiered commander of the Afghanistan war just emailed this to reporters:
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of [...]

If you wanted to underscore the continuity in strategy that exists for Afghanistan and Pakistan now that President Obama has fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, there is absolutely no more potent symbol of doubling down on that strategy than to place Gen. David H. Petraeus — the foremost counterinsurgent in the military and the most respected [...]

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s successor will face a host of strategic questions, ones that McChrystal himself will still have to confront if he stays in command.

It’s like they’re in a strip club, according to Jeff Stein:
The Central Intelligence Agency has hired Xe Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.
The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the industry source, who spoke [...]

The White House seems committed to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency approach — and his most likely replacements share his outlook.

Joe Klein of Time just told that to CNN. Will President Obama accept his resignation if so?
Update: On Twitter, Joe clarifies through Time Magazine that McChrystal offered to resign. Hasn’t actually tendered his resignation.

Almost as soon as Gen. McChrystal’s Rolling Stone comments went into the internet ether, speculation started about a replacement as commander of the Afghanistan war. And quickly there came, in email debates and blog posts and on Twitter, a frontrunner, at least in the minds of wags, speculators and analysts: Marine Gen. James Mattis, the [...]

“He was angry,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said just now about President Obama’s reaction after reading Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s comments to Rolling Stone disrespecting several senior administration officials. Gibbs said he didn’t want to “prejudge” tomorrow’s Situation Room meeting between the general and the president to see “what in the world [McChrystal] was [...]

Some thorough legal analysis by Eugene Fidell of Yale, solicited by Adam Serwer. Fidell thinks that Gen. McChrystal’s comments were “disrespectful” but they don’t rise to the level of insubordination under Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (The operative word in the definition of an actionable offense is “contemptuous.”) But that doesn’t [...]