General McChrystal: in from the cold

24 October 2010 |permalink | email article

Speaking Saturday at The Daily Beast’s Innovators Summit Conference in New Orleans Gen. Stanley McChrystal made his first public comments on military and foreign-policy matters since being relieved of command.

His most revealing comments in an onstage interview with, of all people, Bush administration Homeland Security official Frances Townsend, offered striking recollections of his relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai – one which was described as “a relationship not only of trust but of real affection for each other.”

McChrystal said he changed the employment of air power in order to reduce civilian causalities to an absolute minimum. When an event occurred “I would go straight to President Karzai and start by apologizing to him and the Afghan people. It’s like offering sympathy for a loss. Then, as events would occur that would test that trust, “we had a reservoir to fall back on. I thought that was the most important thing, and President Karzai became a great partner.”

History offers a different reality. In an impossible war to win McChrystal misread the Afghan tea leaves, becoming a willing toady outfoxed by Karzai. Even with General Petraeus in command Karzai will continue to forge his own deals with the Taliban at the expense of the U.S. and its NATO allies.  McChrystal’s apologia pro vita sua doesn’t cut it. For President Obama the signals are clear about Afghanistan: he must take decisive withdrawal action before the end of 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

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