In this day of McChrystal bashing....can I say a few good things, about him, about Afghanistan, about the nonsense I'm reading in the press, and here?
Is he perfect? No. Is he the one-dimensional monster I'm reading about in the pretty dumb Rolling Stone article, and the even dumber comments here? No.
A little background. I'm not in the inner circle. I retired a few years ago, and worked in units that were an integral part of McChrystal's command at JSOC. McChrystal, and JSOC, saved Iraq from becoming total chaos. Not Petraeus, not the surge. I'm working as a contractor in Afghanistan now, although I'm not there as I write this, in a job that directly supports him. If I bumped into him at 7-11, we'd warmly greet, and I'd call him
General and he'd call my by my first name.
A mistake was made giving a reporter continued access, as opposed to an interview. He hung around, people accepted him, things were said because people got too comfortable, relaxed, didn't recognize the various ways things might be heard, and reported. Aides said things, and GEN McChrystal said some dumb things as well, if the article is to be believed.
I agree with what was said about Jones, about Eikenberry, about Holbrooke, about Biden. All for different reasons. Jones is useless (I doubt he'll make it to the next election), Eikenberry did stab McChrystal (and the effort in AFG) in the back, Biden never recovered (in my eyes) from his advocacy for the war in Iraq and the anti-Biden rhetoric in the McC camp comes from the fact that his thoughts on Afghanistan really are truly dumb. At the time of the big debate on which way to go in AFG, getting out completely had merit, giving McChrystal what he wanted had merit, but Biden's half-way, simplistic scenarios had no merit. But I wouldn't have said it to a reporter, on the record, in an article about my boss.
I don't want to go into great detail at this point, other than to say Stan McChrystal is a great American, a great leader, and about the only thing saving Afghanistan from a bloodbath fed by the spring of maybe a couple hundred thousand dead bodies and a million or two refugees. I'll try and answer some specific things in the comments if there is any interest. Thanks.