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 More…
President Obama and Gen. Stanley McChrystal began their decisive one-on-one talk in the Oval Office at 9:51 a.m., according to ABC’s Jake Tapper. Whether or not McChrystal loses his command, all signs point to Obama sticking with his current Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy. If so, that means that operational and More…
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
By the time you read this, Gen. Stanley McChrystal may very well have lost his command in Afghanistan. McChrystal is headed to a White House Situation Room meeting with President Obama on Wednesday; Time’s Joe Klein reported Tuesday afternoon that the general offered to resign after making disrespectful comments More…
“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 More…
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 More…
Just out from the secretary of defense, who has fired many a general officer during his tenure:
I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine. I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one of the people Gen. Stanley McChrystal dissed to Rolling Stone, issued this statement that you could read as neither supporting nor opposing McChrystal.
When General McChrystal called me this morning, I emphasized that my concern is
Vice President Biden will probably have the last laugh now that Gen. Stanley McChrystal is returning to Washington to learn his fate as commanding general in Afghanistan after insulting his civilian bosses and colleagues to Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings. No matter what happens to McChrystal, the article strengthens More…
A not-yet-released Rolling Stone magazine profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, quotes him and anonymous aides expressing anger, disrespect and derision at various members of the Obama administration, including Vice President Biden, Amb. Richard Holbrooke and Amb. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to the More…
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