. Rolling Stone article by Michael Hastings in 2010, documented the widespread contempt for civilian government officials exhibited by the general and his staff and ultimately resulted in McChrystal’s resignation. That’s part of what makes this all so tough: exiting, he leaves us all with little more than questions and a blank sheet of paper. But then he goes away on his bird, and by the time his directives get passed down to us through Big Army, they’re all fucked up – either because somebody is trying to cover their ass, or because they just don’t understand it themselves. From the reporter who brought down McChrystal, a provocative new book about Afghanistan, the media, and the U.S. military. Taking the advice of both the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also fired Gen. David McKiernan – then the U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan – and replaced him with a man he didn’t know and had met only briefly: Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The media, to a large extent, have also given McChrystal a pass on both controversies. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing.”. A week later, McChrystal sent a memo up the chain of command, specifically warning that President Bush should avoid mentioning the cause of Tillman’s death. When Hastings’s article appeared in Rolling Stone, it set off a political firestorm: McChrystal was unceremoniously fired. A war correspondent whose unflinching reporting from Afghanistan led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported.. Michael Hastings, who was 33, was described by many of his colleagues as an unfailingly bright and hard-charging reporter who wrote stories that mattered, most notably his expose of the top Army general. You got to work together with these guys.’ ”. “There’s a possibility we could ask for another surge of U.S. forces next summer if we see success here,” a senior military official in Kabul tells me. The doctrine of counterinsurgency requires a credible government, and since Karzai is not considered credible by his own people, McChrystal has worked hard to make him so. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him. “Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he’s going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. In the article, McChrystal is quoted as disparaging Obama administration officials, mocking Vice President Biden, … When Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, he immediately set out to deliver on his most important campaign promise on foreign policy: to refocus the war in Afghanistan on what led us to invade in the first place. “These were abandoned houses,” fumes Staff Sgt. Journalist Michael Hastings | Rätselhafter Auto-Tod mit 33 Der Reporter, der mit seinen Enthüllungen den legendären Afghanistan-General McChrystal stürzte “We really felt we were a peacetime generation,” he recalls. General Stanley McChrystal. Last fall, during the question-and-answer session following a speech he gave in London, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as “shortsighted,” saying it would lead to a state of “Chaos-istan.” The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. In March, McChrystal traveled to Combat Outpost JFM – a small encampment on the outskirts of Kandahar – to confront such accusations from the troops directly. The COIN doctrine, bizarrely, draws inspiration from some of the biggest Western military embarrassments in recent memory: France’s nasty war in Algeria (lost in 1962) and the American misadventure in Vietnam (lost in 1975). “JSOC was a killing machine,” says Maj. Gen. Mayville, his chief of operations. The night before the general is scheduled to visit Sgt. Back in Afghanistan, less than a month after the White House meeting with Karzai and all the talk of “progress,” McChrystal is hit by the biggest blow to his vision of counterinsurgency. . McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren’t buying it. But there is no mention of victory. The Boss was pretty disappointed.”. At 55, he is gaunt and lean, not unlike an older version of Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn. He has ordered convoys to curtail their reckless driving, put restrictions on the use of air power and severely limited night raids. “In reality, that position needs to be filled by an American for it to have weight,” says a U.S. official familiar with the negotiations. Paris, as one of his advisers says, is the “most anti-McChrystal city you can imagine.” The general hates fancy restaurants, rejecting any place with candles on the tables as too “Gucci.” He prefers Bud Light Lime (his favorite beer) to Bordeaux, Talladega Nights (his favorite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard. https://www.welt.de/.../Ich-haette-McChrystal-laengst-gefeuert.html The driver in the fatal crash was Michael Hastings, a 33-year-old crack investigative reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, whose June 2010 article, “ The Runaway General,” exposed the behind-the-scenes failure of top U.S. General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan—and, even more damagingly, revealed McChrystal's mocking attitude toward the Obama … “Why do you bother to ask questions you’ve already decided you know the answers to?” Reines asked. I will tell you, you’re doing a great job. But Michael Hastings – the US journalist whose article in Rolling Stone magazine led to the sacking of Stanley McChrystal – says many of the soldiers thought the piece was "kind of cool". U.S. Army brass told Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings that he would be hunted down and killed over his story that lead to General McChrystal’s downfall, according to Hasting’s closest friend in the June 26 bombshell interview on the Alex Jones Show. He signed off on a falsified recommendation for a Silver Star that suggested Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. While McChrystal and his men are in indisputable command of all military aspects of the war, there is no equivalent position on the diplomatic or political side. “He did: He always sought out the hard stories, pushed for the truth, let it all hang out on the page. © Copyright 2021 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. “This isn’t a classic operation,” says a U.S. military official. Even 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. His loyal staff liked to call him a “rock star.” During a spring 2010 trip, journalist Michael Hastings looked on as McChrystal and his staff let off steam, partying and openly bashing the Obama administration. What we need, for strategic purposes, is to create the perception that we didn’t get run off. In The Operators, Hastings picks up where his Rolling Stone coup ended. The general’s staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. Whatever the nature of the new plan, the delay underscores the fundamental flaws of counterinsurgency. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany’s president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. You want to wipe the population out here and resettle it?”, A soldier complains that under the rules, any insurgent who doesn’t have a weapon is immediately assumed to be a civilian. After graduation, 2nd Lt. Stanley McChrystal entered an Army that was all but broken in the wake of Vietnam. The untimely and violent death of award-winning journalist Michael Hastings sparked rumors for years that the CIA was somehow involved in the car crash that claimed his life. In June, the death toll for U.S. troops passed 1,000, and the number of IEDs has doubled. One could … Hastings’ unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, “The Runaway General,” captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House. The facts on the ground are not great, and are not going to become great in the near future.”. Want more Rolling Stone? At times, Karzai himself has actively undermined McChrystal’s desire to put him in charge. McChrystal nods. Within hours, McChrystal responded personally: “I’m saddened by the accusation that I don’t care about soldiers, as it is something I suspect any soldier takes both personally and professionally – at least I do. His father fought in Korea and Vietnam, retiring as a two-star general, and his four brothers all joined the armed services. When Michael Hastings ’s unflattering Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal hit newsstands 18 months ago, it didn’t take long for the esteemed general to lose his job. McChrystal entered West Point in 1972, when the U.S. military was close to its all-time low in popularity. “I like Karl, I’ve known him for years, but they’d never said anything like that to us before,” says McChrystal, who adds that he felt “betrayed” by the leak. But it was during his next stint – overseeing the military’s most elite units, including the Rangers, Navy Seals and Delta Force – that McChrystal took part in a cover-up that would have destroyed the career of a lesser man. They mention the word “progress” 16 times in under an hour. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, prisoners at the camp were subjected to a now-familiar litany of abuse: stress positions, being dragged naked through the mud. Anybody? And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me," she said, adding that she knows McChrystal's staff and McChrystal doesn't have a history of interacting with the press. Can say, ‘ I told you so. ’ ” they would mocked. 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