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THERUNAW

AYGENERAL

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WriterMichael Hastings hasreported from Iraq and Afghanistan fortwo years. This is his first story for RS.

| Rolling St one |93July 8-22, 2010July 8-22, 201092| Rolling St one|

RUNAWAY GENERAL

Germanys president and sparked bothCanada and the Netherlands to announcethe withdrawal of their 4,500 troops.McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French,who have lost more than 40 soldiers inAfghanista n, f rom going all wobbly onhim.

The dinner comes with the position,sir, says his chief of sta, Col. CharlieFlynn.

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.Hey, Charlie, he asks, does this come

with the position?McChrystal gives him the middle

finger.The general stands and looks around

the suite that his traveling sta

of 10 hasconverted into a f ull-scale operations cen-ter. The tables are crowded with silverPanasonic Toughbooks, and blue cablescrisscross the hotels thick carpet, hookedup to satellite dishes to provide encry pt-ed phone and e-mail communications.Dressed in o-the-rack civilian casual blue tie, button-down shirt, dress slacks McChrystal is way out of his comfortzone. Paris, as one of his advisers says, isthe most anti-McChrystal city you canimagine. The general hates fancy res-taurants, rejecting any place with can-dles on the tables as too Gucci. He pre-fers Bud Light Lime (his favorite beer) toBordeaux, Talladega Nights (his favor-ite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard. Besides,the public eye has never been a placewhere McChrystal felt c omfortable: Be-fore President Obama put him in chargeof the war in Afghanistan, he spent fiveyears running the Pentagons most secre-tive black ops.

Whats the update on the Kandaharbombing? McChrystal asks Flynn. Thecity has been rocked by two massive carbombs in the past day alone, calling intoquestion the generals assurances that hecan wrest it from the Taliban.

troops to not only destroy the enemy, butto live among the civilian population andslowly rebuild, or build from scratch, an-other nations government a processthat even its staunchest advocates admitrequires years, if not decades, to ac hieve.The theory essentially rebrands the mil-itary, expanding its authority (and itsfunding) to encompass the diplomat-ic and political sides of warfare: Thinkthe Green Berets as an armed PeaceCorps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petra-eus beta-tested the theoryduring his surge in Iraq,it quickly gained a hardcore

following of think-tankers,journalists, military ocersand civilian ocials. Nick-named COINdinistas fortheir cultish zeal, this in-fluential cadre believed thedoctrine would be the per-fect solution for Afghani-stan. All they needed wasa general with enough cha-risma and political savvy toimplement it.

As McCh rys tal lean edon Obama to ramp up thewar, he did it with the samefearlessness he used totrack down terrorists in Iraq: Figure outhow your enemy operates, be faster andmore ruthless than everybody else, thentake the fuckers out. After arriving in

Afghanistan last June, the general con-ducted his own policy review, orderedup by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.The now-infamous report was leaked tothe press, and its conclusion was dire: Ifwe d idnt send another 40,000 troops swelling the number of U.S. forces inAfghanistan by nearly half we were indanger of mission failure. The WhiteHouse was furious. McChrystal, they felt,was trying to bully Obama, opening himup to charges of being weak on nationalsecurity unless he did what the generalwanted. It was Obama versus the Penta-gon, and the Pentagon was determined tokick the presidents ass.

Last fall, with his top general call-ing for more troops, Obama launched athree-month review to re-evaluate thestrategy in Afghanistan. I found thattime painful, McChrystal tells me in oneof several lengthy interviews. I was sell-ing an unsellable position. For the gen-eral, it was a crash course in Beltway pol-itics a battle that pitted him againstexperienced Washington insiders likeVice President Biden, who argued that aprolonged counterinsurgency campaignin Afghanistan would plunge Americainto a military quagmire without weak-ening international terrorist networks.The entire COIN strategy is a fraud per-petuated on the American people, saysDouglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and

oensive that began in February to re-take the southern town of Marja con-tinues to drag on, prompting McChrystalhimself to refer to it as a bleeding ulcer.In June, Afghanistan ocially outpacedVietnam as the longest war in Americanhistory and Obama has quietly begunto back away from the deadline he set forwithdrawing U.S. troops in July of nextyear. The president finds himself stuc kin something even more insane thana quagmire: a quagmire he knowingly

walked into, even though itsprecisely the kind of gigan-tic, mind-numbing, multi-

generational nation-build-ing project he explicitly saidhe didnt want.

Even those who supportMcChrystal and his strat-egy of counterinsurgen-cy know that whatever thegeneral manages to accom-plish in Afghanistan, itsgoing to look more like Viet-nam than Desert Storm.Its not going to look like awin, smell like a win or tastelike a win, says Maj. Gen.Bill Mayville, who servesas chief of operations for

McChrystal. This is going to end in anargument.

Th e n i g h t a f t e r h i s

speech in Paris, McChrystaland his staff head to KittyOSheas, an Irish pub cater-ing to tourists, around the

corner from the hotel. His wife, Annie,has joined him for a rare visit: Since theIraq War began in 2003, she has seen herhusband less than 30 days a year. Thoughit is his and Annies 33rd wedding anni-versary, McChrystal has invited his innercircle along for dinner and drinks at theleast Gucci place his stacould find. Hiswife isnt surprised. He once took me toa Jack in the Box when I was dressed informalwear, she says with a laugh.

The generals stais a handpicked col-lection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots,political operators and outright mani-acs. Theres a former head of British Spe-cial Forces, two Navy Seals, an AfghanSpecial Forces commando, a lawyer, twofighter pilots and at least two dozen com-bat veterans and counterinsurgency ex-perts. They jokingly refer to themselvesas Team America, taking the name fromtheSouth Park-esque sendup of militarycluelessness, and they pride themselveson their can-do attitude and their disdainfor authority. After arriving in Kabul lastsummer, Team America set about chang-ing the culture of the International Se-curity Assistance Force, as the NATO-led mission is known. (U.S. soldiers hadtaken to deriding ISAF as short for I

Im up there, thats the problem, he says.Then, unable to help themselves, he andhis sta imagine the general dismissingthe vice president with a good one-liner.

Are you asking about Vice PresidentBiden? McChrystal says with a laugh.Whos that?

Biden? suggests a top adviser. Didyou say: Bite Me?

Wh en b ar ack o b amaentered the Oval Oce,he immediately set outto deliver on his mostimportant campaign

promise on foreign policy: to refocusthe war in Afghanistan on what led usto invade in the first place. I want theAmerican people to understand, he an-nounced in March 2009. We have a clearand focused goal: to disrupt, dismantleand defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan andAfghanistan. He ordered another 21,000troops to Kabul, the largest increase sincethe war began in 2001. Taking the adviceof both the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefsof Staff, he also fired Gen. David Mc-Kiernan then the U.S. and NATO com-mander in Afghanistan and replacedhim with a man he didnt know and hadmet only briefly: Gen. Stanley McChrys-tal. It was the first time a top general hadbeen relieved from duty during wartimein more than 50 years, since Harry Tru-man fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur at

the height of the Korean War.Even though he had voted for Obama,McChrystal and his new commander inchief failed from the outset to connect.The general first encountered Obamaa week after he took office, when thepresident met with a dozen senior mili-tary ocials in a room at the Pentagonknown as the Tank. According to sourc-es familiar with the meeting, McChrys-tal thought Obama looked uncomfort-able and intimidated by the roomful ofmilitary brass. Their first one-on-onemeeting took place in the Oval Oce fourmonths later, after McChrystal got theAfghanistan job, and it didnt go muchbetter. It wa s a 10-minute photo op ,says an adviser to McChrystal. Obamaclearly didnt know anything about him,who he was. Heres the guy whos goingto run his fucking war, but he didntseem very engaged. The Boss was prettydisappointed.

From the start, McChrystal was de-termined to place his personal stamp onAfghanistan, to use it as a laboratory fora controversial military strategy knownas counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theo-ry is known, is the new gospel of the Pen-tagon brass, a doctrine that attempts tosquare the militarys preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fight-ing protracted wars in failed states. COINcalls for sending huge numbers of ground

ment would sap American power; AlQaeda has shifted its base of operationsto Pakistan. Then, w ithout ever usingthe words victory or win, Obama an-nounced that he would send an addition-al 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, almostas many as McChrystal had requested.The president had thrown his weight,however hesitantly, behind the counter-insurgency crowd.

Today, as McChrystal gears up for anoensive in southern Afghanistan, theprospects for any kind of success lookbleak. In Ju ne, the d eath toll for U. S.troops passed 1,000, and the number ofIEDs has doubled. Spending hundredsof billions of dollars on the fifth-poorestcountry on earth has failed to win overthe civilian population, whose attitudetoward U.S. troops ranges from intense-ly wary to openly hostile. The biggest mil-itary operation of the year a ferocious

THE GENERALS

TEAM MAKESJOKES ABOUT

THE VP. BIDEN?LAUGHS A TOP

AIDE. DID YOUSAY: BITE ME?

We have two KIAs, but that hasntbeen confirmed, Flynn says.

McChrystal takes a final look aroundthe suite. At 55, he is gaunt and lean, notunlike an older version of Christian BaleinRescue Dawn. His slate-blue eyes havethe unsettling ability to drill down whenthey lock on you. If youve fucked up ordisappointed him, they can destroy yoursoul without the need for him to raisehis voice.

Id rather have my ass kicked by aroomful of people than go out to this din-ner, McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.Unfortunately, he adds, no one in

this room could do it.With that, hes out the door.Whos he going to dinner with? I ask

one of his aides.Some French minister, the aide tells

me. Its fucking gay.The next morning, McChrystal and his

team gather to prepare for a speech he isgiving at the cole Militaire, a Frenchmilitary academy. The general prideshimself on being sharper and ballsi-er than anyone else, but his brashnesscomes with a price: Although McChrys-tal has been in charge of the war for onlya year, in that short time he has man-aged to piss o almost everyone with astake in the conflict. Last fall, during thequestion-and-answer session following aspeech he gave in London, McChrystaldismissed the counterterrorism strate-gy being advocated by Vice President JoeBiden as shortsighted, saying it wouldlead to a state of Chaos-istan. The re-marks earned him a smackdown fromthe president himself, who summoned thegeneral to a terse private meeting aboardAir Force One. The message to McChrys-tal seemed clear: Shut the fuck up, andkeep a lower profile.

Now, flipping through printout cardsof his speech in Paris, McChrystal won-ders aloud what Biden question he mightget today, and how he should respond. Inever know whats going to pop out until

Howd i get screwed into going

to this dinner? demands Gen. Stan-ley McChrystal. Its a Thursday nightin mid-April, and the commander ofall U.S. and NATO forces in Afghani-

stan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Htel Westmin-ster in Paris. Hes in France to sell his new war strategy toour NATO allies to keep up the fiction, in essence, thatwe actuallyhave allies. Since McChrystal took over a yearago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive propertyof the United States. Opposition to the war has alreadytoppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of

leading critic of counterinsurgency whoattended West Point with McChrystal.The idea that we are going to spend atrillion dollars to reshape the culture ofthe Islamic world is utter nonsense.

In the end, however, McChrystal gotalmost exactly what he wanted. OnDecember 1st, in a speech at West Point,the president laid out all the reasonswhy fighting the war in A fghanistan isa bad idea: Its expensive; were in aneconomic crisis; a decade-long commit-

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Suck at Fighting or In Sandals and Flip-Flops.) McChrystal banned alcohol onbase, kicked out Burger King and othersymbols of American excess, expand-ed the morning briefing to include thou-sands of ocers and refashioned the com-mand center into a Situational AwarenessRoom, a free-flowing information hubmodeled after Mayor Mike Bloombergsoces in New York. He also set a manicpace for his staff, becoming legendaryfor sleeping four hours a night, runningseven miles each morning, and eatingone meal a day. (In the month I spendaround the general, I witness him eat-ing only once.) Its a kind of superhumannarrative that has built up around him,a staple in almost every media profile, asif the ability to go without sleep and foodtranslates into the possibility of a mansingle-handedly winning the war.

By midnight at Kitty OSheas, muchof Team America is completely shitfaced.Two ocers do an Irish jig mixed withsteps from a traditional Afghan wed-ding dance, while McChrystals top ad-visers lock arms and sing a slurred song oftheir own invention. Afghanistan! theybellow. Afghanistan! They call it theirAfghanistan song.

McChrystal steps away from the cir-cle, observing his team. All these men,he tells me. Id die for them. And theyddie for me.

The assembled men may look andsound like a bunch of combat veteransletting osteam, but in fact this tight-knitgroup represents the most powerful forceshaping U.S. policy in Afghanistan. WhileMcChrystal and his men are in indisput-able command of all military aspects ofthe war, there is no equivalent position onthe diplomatic or political side. Instead,an assortment of administration play-ers compete over the Afghan portfolio:U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Spe-cial Representative to Afghanistan Rich-ard Holbrooke, National Security AdvisorJim Jones and Secretary of State HillaryClinton, not to mention 40 or so other co-alition ambassadors and a host of talkingheads who try to insert themselves intothe mess, from John Kerry to John Mc-Cain. This diplomatic incoherence haseectively allowed McChrystals team tocall the shots and hampered efforts tobuild a stable and credible government inAfghanistan. It jeopardizes the mission,says Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at theCouncil on Foreign Relations who sup-

ports McChrystal. The military cannotby itself create governance reform.

Part of the problem is structural: TheDefense Department budget exceeds$600 billion a year, while the State De-partment receives only $50 billion. Butpart of the problem is personal: In pri-vate, Team McChrystal likes to talk shitabout many of Obamas top people on thediplomatic side. One aide calls Jim Jones,a retired four-star general and veteranof the Cold War, a clown who remainsstuck in 1985. Politicians like McCainand Kerry, says another aide, turn up,have a meeting with Karzai, criticize himat the airport press conference, then getback for the Sunday talk shows. Frankly,its not very helpful. Only Hillary Clintonreceives good reviews from McChrystalsinner circle. Hillary had Stans back dur-ing the strategic review, says an adv iser.She said, If Stan wants it, g ive him whathe needs.

McChrystal reserves special skepti-cism for Holbrooke, the ocial in chargeof reintegrating the Taliban. The Bosssays hes like a wounded animal, says amember of the generals team. Holbrookekeeps hearing rumors that hes going toget fired, so that makes him dangerous.

Hes a brilliant guy, but he just comes in,pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasponto. But this is COIN, and you cant justhave someone yanking on shit.

At one point on his trip to Paris, Mc-Chrystal checks his BlackBerry. Oh,not another e-mail from Holbrooke, hegroans. I dont even want to open it. Heclicks on the message and reads the salu-tation out loud, then stus the BlackBerryback in his pocket, not bothering to con-ceal his annoyance.

Make sure you dont get any of thaton your leg, an aide jokes, referring tothe e-mail.

By fa r th e mos t cru ci al and strained relationshipis between McChrystal andEikenberry, the U.S. ambas-sador. According to those close

to the two men, Eikenberry a retiredthree-star general who served in Afghan-istan in 2002 and 2005 cant stand thathis former subordinate is now calling theshots. Hes also furious that McChrystal,backed by NATOs allies, refused to putEikenberry in the pivotal role of vice-roy in Afghanistan, which would havemade him the diplomatic equivalent ofthe general. The job instead went to Brit-ish Ambassador Mark Sedwill a movethat eectively increased McChrystalsinfluence over diplomacy by shutting outa powerful rival. In reality, that position

needs to be filled by an American for it tohave weight, says a U.S. ocial familiarwith the negotiations.

The relationship was further strainedin January, when a classified cable thatEikenberry wrote was leaked to The NewYork Times. The cable was as scathing asit was prescient. The ambassador oereda brutal critique of McChrystals strate-gy, dismissed President Hamid Karzai asnot an adequate strategic partner, andcast doubt on whether the counterinsur-gency plan would be sucient to dealwith A l Q aeda. We will become moredeeply engaged here with no way to ex-tricate ourselves, Eikenberry warned,short of allowing the country to descendagain into lawlessness and chaos.

McChrystal and his team were blind-sided by the cable. I like Karl, Iveknown him for years, but theyd neversaid anything like that to us before, saysMcChrystal, who adds that he felt be-trayed by the leak. Heres one that cov-ers his flank for the history books. Now ifwe fail, they can say, I told you so.

The most striking example of McChrys-tals usurpation of diplomatic policy is hishandling of Karzai. It is McChrystal, notdiplomats like Eikenberry or Holbrooke,who enjoys the best relationship with theman America is relying on to lead Af-ghanistan. The doctrine of counterinsur-gency requires a credible government,

and since Karzai is not considered cred-ible by his own people, McChrystal hasworked hard to make him so. Over thepast few months, he has accompanied thepresident on more than 10 trips aroundthe country, standing beside him at polit-ical meetings, or shuras, in Kandahar. InFebruary, the day before the doomed of-fensive in Marja, McChrystal even droveover to the presidents palace to get him tosign oon what would be the largest mil-itary operation of the year. Karzais sta,however, insisted that the president wassleeping oa cold and could not be dis-turbed. After several hours of haggling,

McChrystal finally enlisted the aid ofAfghanistans defense minister, who per-suaded Karzais people to wake the pres-ident from his nap.

This is one of the central flaws withMcChrystals counterinsurgency strat-

before whippi ng a fastb all down themiddle.

McChrystal entered West Point in1972, when the U.S. military was closeto its all-time low in popularity. His classwas the last to graduate before the acad-emy started to admit women. The Prisonon the Hudson, as it was known then,was a potent mix of testosterone, hooli-ganism and reactionary patriotism. Ca-dets repeatedly trashed the mess hall infood fights, and birthdays were celebrat-ed with a tradition called rat fucking,which often left the birthday boy outsidein the snow or mud, covered in shaving

cream. It was pretty out of control, saysLt. Gen. David Barno, a classmate whowent on to serve as the top commanderin Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. Theclass, filled with what Barno calls hugetalent and wild-eyed teenagers with astrong sense of idealism, also producedGen. Ray Odierno, the current command-er of U.S. forces in Iraq.

The son of a general, McChrystal wasalso a ringleader of the campus dissi-dents a dual role that taught him howto thrive in a rigid, top-down environ-ment while thumbing his nose at author-ity every chance he got. He accumulat-ed more than 100 hours of demerits fordrinking, partying and insubordination a record that his classmates boastedmade him a century man. One class-mate, who asked not to be named, recalls

finding McChrystal passed out in theshower after downing a case of beer hehad hidden under the sink. The trouble-making almost got him kicked out, andhe spent hours subjected to forced march-es in the Area, a paved courtyard whereunruly cadets were disciplined. Id comevisit, and Id end up spending most of mytime in the library, while Stan was in theArea, rec alls Annie, who began datingMcChrystal in 1973.

McChrystal wound up ranking 298 outof a class of 855, a serious underachieve-ment for a man widely regarded as bril-liant. His most compelling work was ex-tracurricular: As managing editor ofThe

Pointer, the West Point literary magazine,McChrystal wrote seven short stories thateerily foreshadow many of the issues hewould confront in his career. In one tale,a fictional ocer complains about the dif-ficulty of training foreign troops to fight;in another, a 19-year-old soldier kills aboy he mistakes for a terrorist. In Brink-mans Note, a piece of suspense fiction,the unnamed narrator appears to be tr y-ing to stop a plot to assassinate the pres-ident. It turns out, however, that the nar-rator himself is the assassin, a nd hes ableto infiltrate the White House: The Pres-ident strode in smiling. From the rightcoat pocket of the raincoat I carried, Islowly drew forth my 32-caliber pistol. InBrinkmans failure, I had succeeded.

egy: The need to build a credible gov-ernment puts us at the mercy of whatev-er tin-pot leader weve backed a dangerthat Eikenberry explicitly warned aboutin his cable. Even Team McChrystal pri-vately acknowledges that Karzai is a less-than-ideal partner. Hes been locked upin his palace the past year, laments oneof the generals top advisers. At times,Karzai himself has actively underminedMcChrystals desire to put him in charge.During a recent visit to Walter ReedArmy Medical Center, Karzai met threeU.S. soldiers who had been wounded inUruzgan province. General, he calledout to McChrystal, I didnt even knowwe were fighting in Uruzgan!

Growing up as a militarybrat, McC hrystal exhibitedthe mixture of brilliance andcockiness that would followhim throughout his career.

His father fought in Korea and Vietnam,retiring as a two-star general, and hisfour brothers all joined the armed ser-vices. Moving around to dierent bases,McChrystal took solace in baseball, asport in which he made no pretense ofhiding his superiority: In Little League,he would call out strikes to the crowd

MCCHRYSTALISNT JUST IN

CHARGE ON THEBATTLEFIELD:

HE ALSO CALLSTHE DIPLOMATIC

SHOTS.

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RUNAWAY GENERAL

After graduation, 2nd Lt. Stanley Mc-Chrystal entered an Army that was allbut broken in the wake of Vietnam. Wereally felt we were a peacetime gener-ation, he recalls. There was the GulfWar, but even that didnt feel like that bigof a deal. So McChrystal spent his ca-reer where the action was: He enrolledin Special Forces school and became aregimental commander of the 3rd Rang-er Battalion in 1986. It was a dangerousposition, even in peacetime nearly twodozen Rangers were killed in training ac-cidents during the Eighties. It was also anunorthodox career path: Most soldiers

who want to climb the rank s to gener-al dont go into the Rangers. Displayinga penchant for transforming systems heconsiders outdated, McChrystal set outto revolutionize the training regime forthe Rangers. He introduced mixed mar-tial arts, required every soldier to quali-fy with night-vision goggles on the riflerange and forced troops to build up theirendurance with weekly marches involv-ing heavy backpacks.

In the late 1990s, McChrystal shrewd-ly improved his inside game, spending ayear at Harvards Kennedy School of Gov-ernment and then at the Council on For-eign Relations, where he co-authored atreatise on the merits and drawbacks ofhumanitarian interventionism. But as hemoved up through the ranks, McChrys-tal relied on the skills he had learned as a

troublemaking kid at West Point: know-ing precisely how far he could go in a rigidmilitary hierarchy without getting tossedout. Being a highly intelligent badass, hediscovered, could take you far especial-ly in the political chaos that followed Sep-tember 11th. He was very focused, saysAnnie. Even as a young ocer he seemedto know what he wanted to do. I dontthink his personality has changed in allthese years.

By so me ac co u nt s, mc -Chrystals career should havebeen over at least two times bynow. As Pentagon spokesmanduring the invasion of Iraq,

the general seemed more like a WhiteHouse mouthpiece than an up-and-com-ing commander with a reputation forspeaking his mind. When Defense Sec-retary Donald Rumsfeld made his infa-mous stuhappens remark during thelooting of Baghdad, McChrystal backedhim up. A few days later, he echoed thepresidents Mission Accomplished gaeby i nsisting that maj or combat opera-tions in Iraq were over. But it was duringhis next stint overseeing the militarysmost elite units, including the Rangers,Navy Seals and Delta Force that Mc-Chrystal took part in a cover-up thatwould have destroy ed the caree r of alesser man.

way at headquarters. Then hell add, Imgoing to have to scold you in the morn-ing for it, though. In fact, the general fre-quently finds himself apologizing for thedisastrous consequences of counterinsur-gency. In the first four months of this year,NATO forces killed some 90 civilians, up76 percent from the same period in 2009 a record that has created tremendous re-sentment among the very population thatCOIN theory is intent on winning over.In February, a Special Forces night raidended in the deaths of two pregnant Af-ghan women and allegations of a cover-up, and in April, protests erupted in Kan-dahar after U.S. forces accidentally shotup a bus, killing five Afghans. Weve shotan amazing number of people, McChrys-tal recently conceded.

Despite the tragedies andmiscues, McChrystal hasissued some of the strictestdirectives to avoid civiliancasualties that the U.S. mili-

tary has ever encountered in a war zone.Its insurgent math, as he calls it forevery innocent person you kill, you create10 new enemies. He has ordered convoysto curtail their reckless driving, put re-

to confront such accusations from thetroops directly. It was a typically boldmove by the general. Only two days ear-lier, he had received an e-mail from IsraelArroyo, a 25-year-old stasergeant whoasked McChrystal to go on a mission withhis unit. I am writing because it wassaid you dont care about the troops andhave made it harder to defend ourselves,Arroyo wrote.

Within hours, McChrystal respondedpersonally: Im saddened by the accusa-tion that I dont care about soldiers, as itis something I suspect any soldier takesboth personally and professionally at

least I do. But I know perceptions de-pend upon your perspective at the time,and I respect that every soldiers view ishis own. Then he showed up at Arroyosoutpost and went on a foot patrol withthe troops not some bullshit photo-opstroll through a market, but a real live op-eration in a dangerous war zone.

Six weeks later, just before McChrys-tal returned from Paris, the general re-ceived another e-mail from Arroyo. A23-year-old corporal named Michael In-gram one of the soldiers McChrystalhad gone on patrol with had been killedby an IED a d ay earlier. It was the thirdman the 25-member platoon had lost in ayear, and Arroyo was writing to see if thegeneral would attend Ingrams memori-al service. He started to look up to you,Arroyo wrote. McChrystal said he wouldtry to make it down to pay his respects assoon as possible.

The night before the general is sched-uled to visit Sgt. Arroyos platoon for thememorial, I arrive at Combat OutpostJFM to speak with the soldiers he hadgone on patrol with. JFM is a small en-campment, ringed by high blast wallsand guard towers. Almost all of the sol-diers here have been on repeated com-bat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan,and have seen some of the worst fightingof both wars. But they are especially an-gered by Ingrams death. His command-ers had repeatedly requested permissionto tear down the house where Ingram waskilled, noting that it was often used as acombat position by the Taliban. But dueto McChrystals new restrictions to avoidupsetting civilians, the request had beendenied. These were abandoned houses,fumes StaSgt. Kennith Hicks. Nobodywas coming back to live in them.

One soldier shows me the list of newregulations the platoon was given. Pa-trol only in areas that you are reasonablycertain that you will not have to defendyourselves with lethal force, the laminat-ed card reads. For a soldier who has trav-eled halfway around the world to fight,thats like telling a cop he should onlypatrol in areas where he k nows he wonthave to make arrests. Does that makeany fucking sense? asks

After Cpl. Pat T illman, the fo rmer-NFL-star-turned-Ranger, was acciden-tally killed by his own troops in Afghan-istan in April 2004, McChrystal took anactive role in creating the impression thatTillman had died at the hands of Talibanfighters. He signed oon a falsified rec-ommendation for a Silver Star that sug-gested Tillman had been k illed by enemyfire. (McChrystal would later claim hedidnt read the recommendation close-ly enough a strange excuse for a com-mander known for his laserlike attentionto minute details.) A week later, McChrys-tal sent a memo up the chain of com-

mand, specifically warning that PresidentBush should avoid mentioning the causeof Tillmans death. If the circumstancesof Corporal Tillmans death become pub-lic, he wrote, it could cause public em-barrassment for the president.

Tillman cover-up. But the scandals barelymade a ripple in Congress, and McChrys-tal was soon on his way back to Kabul torun the war in Afghanistan.

The media, to a large extent, have alsogiven McChrystal a pass on both contro-versies. Where Gen. Petraeus is kind ofa dweeb, a teachers pet with a Rangerstab, McChrystal is a snake-eating rebel,a Jedi commander, asNewsweek calledhim. He didnt care when his teenage soncame home with blue hair and a mohawk.He speaks his mind with a candor rarefor a high-ranking ocial. He asks foropinions, and seems genuinely interested

in the response. He gets briefings on hisiPod and listens to books on tape. He car-ries a custom-made set of nunchucks inhis convoy engraved with his name andfour stars, and his itinerary often bears afresh quote from Bruce Lee. (There areno limits. There are only plateaus, and youmust not stay there, you must go beyondthem.) He went out on dozens of night-time raids during his time in Iraq, unprec-edented for a top commander, and turnedup on missions unannounced, with almostno entourage. The fucking lads love StanMcChrystal, says a British ocer whoserves in Kabul. Youd be out in Some-where, Iraq, and someone would take aknee beside you, and a corporal would belike Who the fuck is that? A nd its fuck-ing Stan McChrystal.

It doesnt hurt that McChrystal was

also extremely successful as head of theJoint Special Operations Command,the elite forces that carry out the gov-ernments darkest ops. During the Iraqsurge, his team killed and captured thou-sands of insurgents, including Abu Musabal-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.JSOC was a killing machine, says Maj.Gen. Mayville, his chief of operations.McChrystal was also open to new waysof killing. He systematically mapped outterrorist networks, targeting specific in-surgents and hunting them down oftenwith the help of cyberfreaks traditionallyshunned by the military. The Boss wouldfind the 24-year-old kid with a nose ring,with some fucking brilliant degree fromMIT, sitting in the corner with 16 com-puter monitors humming, says a Spe-cial Forces commando who worked withMcChrystal in Iraq and now serves on hisstain Kabul. Hed say, Hey you fuck-ing muscleheads couldnt find lunch with-out help. You got to work together withthese guys.

Even in his new role as Americas lead-ing evangelist for counterinsurgency, Mc-Chrystal retains the deep-seated instinctsof a terrorist hunter. To put pressure onthe Taliban, he has upped the number ofSpecial Forces units in Afghanistan fromfour to 19. You better be out there hittingfour or five targets tonight, McChrystalwill tell a Navy Seal he sees in the hall-

strictions on the use of air power andseverely limited night raids. He regularlyapologizes to Hamid Karzai when civil-ians are killed, and berates commandersresponsible for civilian deaths. For awhile, says one U.S. ocial, the mostdangerous place to be in Afghanistanwas in front of McChr ystal after a civcas incident. The ISAF command haseven discussed ways to make notkillinginto something you can win an award for:Theres talk of creating a new medal forcourageous restraint, a buzzword thatsunlikely to gain much traction in thegung-ho culture of the U.S. military.

But however strategic they may be,McChrystals new marching orders havecaused an intense backlash among hisown troops. Being told to hold their fire,soldiers complain, puts them in greaterdanger. Bottom line? says a former Spe-cial Forces operator who has spent yearsin Iraq and Afghanistan. I would loveto kick McChrystal in the nuts. His rulesof engagement put soldiers lives in evengreater danger. Every real soldier will tellyou the same thing.

In March, McChrystal traveled toCombat Outpost JFM a small encamp-ment on the outskirts of Kandahar

MCCHRYSTALMAY HAVE SOLD

OBAMA ONHIS STRATEGY,BUT HIS OWN

TROOPS ARENTBUYING IT.

Team of Rivals

The false narrative, which McChrys-tal clearly helped construct, diminishedPats true actions, wrote Tillmans moth-er, Mary, in her bookBoots on the Groundby Dusk. McChrystal got away with it,she added, because he was the goldenboy of Rumsfeld and Bush, who lovedhis willingness to get things done, even ifit included bending the rules or skippingthe chain of command. Nine days afterTillmans death, McChrystal was promot-ed to major general.

Two years later, in 2006, McChrystalwas ta inted by a sca ndal involv ing de-tainee abuse and torture at Camp Namain Iraq. According to a report by HumanRights Watch, prisoners at the campwere subjected t o a now-familiar litanyof abuse: stress positions, being draggednaked through the mud. McChrystalwas not disciplined in the scandal, eventhough an interrogator at the camp re-ported seeing him inspect the prison mul-tiple times. But the experience was so un-settling to McChrystal that he tried toprevent detainee operations from beingplaced under his command in Afghani-stan, viewing them as a political swamp,according to a U.S. ocial. In May 2009,as McChrystal prepared for his confirma-tion hearings, his staprepared him forhard questions about Camp Nama and the

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7/31/2019 Rolling Stone McChrystal

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Pfc. JaredPautsch. We should just dropa fucking bomb on this place.You sit and ask yourself: Whatare we doing here?

The rules handed out hereare not what McChrystal in-tended theyve been distort-ed as they passed throughthe chain of command butknowing that does nothingto lessen the anger of troopson the ground. Fuck, when

I came over here and heardthat McChrystal wasin charge, I thought wewould get our fuck inggun on, says Hicks, whohas served three tours ofcombat. I get COIN. Iget all that. McChrystalcomes here, explains it,it makes sense. But thenhe goes away on his bird,and by the time his di-rectives get passed downto us through Big Army,theyre all fucked up either because somebodyis trying to cover theirass, or because they justdont understand it them-selves. But were fucking losingthis thing.

McChrystal and his teamshow up the next day. Under-neath a tent, the general hasa 45-minute discussion withsome two dozen soldiers. Theatmosphere is tense. I ask youwhats going on in your world,and I think its important foryou all to understand the bigpicture as well, McChrystalbegins . Hows t he c ompanydoing? You guys feeling sorryfor yourselves? Anybody? Any-body feel l ike y oure losing? McChrystal says.

Sir, some of the guys here,sir, think were losing, sir, saysHicks.

McChrystal nods. Strengthis leading when you just dont

want to lead, he tells the men.Youre leading by example.Thats what we do. Particular-ly when its really, really hard,and it hurts inside. Then hespends 20 minutes talkingabout counterinsurgency, dia-gramming his concepts andprinciples on a whiteboard. Hemakes COIN seem like com-mon sense, but hes careful notto bullshit the men. We areknee-deep in the decisive year,he tells them. The Taliban, he

insists, no longer has the ini-tiative but I dont think wedo, either. Its similar to thetalk he gave in Paris, but its notwinning any hearts and mindsamong the soldiers. This is thephilosophical part that workswith think tanks, McChrystaltries to joke. But it doesnt getthe same reception from infan-try companies.

During the question-and-answer period, the frustra-tion boils over. The soldierscomplain about not being al-

lowed to use lethal force, about

watching insurgents they de-tain be freed for lack of evi-dence. They want to be ableto fight like they did in Iraq,like they had in Afghanistanbefore McChrystal. We arentputting fear into the Taliban,one soldier says.

Winning hearts and mindsin COIN is a coldbloodedthing, McChrystal says, citingan oft-repeated maxim thatyou cant kill your way out ofAfgha nista n. The Russia nskilled 1 million Afghans, andthat didnt work.

Im not saying go out andkill everybody, sir, the sol-dier persists. You say wevestopped the momentum ofthe insurgency. I dont be-lieve thats true in this area.

The more we pull back, themore we restrain ourselves,the stronger its getting.

I agree with you, McChrys-tal says. In this area, weve notmade progress, probably. Youhave to show strength here,you have to use fire. What Imtelling you is, fire costs you.What do you want to do? Youwant t o w ipe t he popu lationout here and resettle it?

A soldi er compla ins thatunder the rules, any insurgent

who doesnt have a weapon isimmediately assumed to be acivilian. Thats the way thisgame is, McChrystal says. Itscomplex. I cant just decide: Itsshirts and skins, and well killall the shirts.

As the discussion ends, Mc-Chrystal seems to sense thathe hasnt succeeded at easingthe mens anger. He makes onelast-ditch eort to reach them,acknowledging the death ofCpl. Ingram. Theres no way Ican make that easier, he tells

them. No way I can pretendit wont hurt. No way I cantell you not to feel that. . . .I will tell you, youre doinga great job. Dont let thefrustration get to you. Thesession ends with no clap-ping, and no real resolu-tion. McChrystal may havesold President Obama oncounterinsurgency, butmany of his own men arentbuying it.

When it comest o Af gh a n i -stan, history is

not on McChrystals side.The only foreign invader

to have any success here wasGenghis Khan and he wasnthampered by things likehuman rights, economic de-velopment and press scrutiny.The COIN doctrine, bizarrely,draws inspiration from someof the biggest Western mili-tary embarrassments in recentmemory: Frances nasty warin Algeria (lost in 1962) andthe American misadventurein Vietnam (lost in 1975). Mc-Chrystal, like other advocatesof COIN, readily acknowl-edges that counterinsurgencycampaigns are inherentlymessy, expensive and easy tolose. Even Afghans are con-fused by Afghanistan, he says.But even if he somehow man-ages to succeed, after years of

bloody fighting with Afgha nkids who pose no threat to theU.S. homeland, the war will dolittle to shut down Al Qaeda,which has shifted its opera-tions to Pakistan. Dispatch-ing 150,000 troops to buildnew schools, roads, mosquesand water-treatment facili-ties around Kandahar is liketrying to stop the drug warin Mexico by occupying Ar-kansas and building Baptistchurches in Little Rock. Its all

very c ynical, politically, saysMarc Sageman, a former CIAcase ocer who has extensiveexperience in the region. Af-ghanistan is not in our vitalinterest theres nothing forus there.

In mid-May, two weeks aftervisiting the troops in Kanda-har, McChrystal travels to theWhite House for a high-levelvisit by Hamid Karzai. It is atriumphant moment for thegeneral, one that demonstrateshe is very much in command

both in K abul a nd i n Wash-ington. In the East Room,which is pack ed with jour-nalists and dignitaries, Pres-ident Obama sings the praisesof Karzai. The two leaders talkabout how great their relation-ship is, about the pain they feelover civilian casualties. Theymention the word progress16 times in under an hour. Butthere is no mention of victo-ry. Still, the session representsthe most forceful commitmentthat Obama has made to Mc-Chrystals strategy in months.There is no denying the prog-ress that the Afghan peoplehave made in recent years in education, in health careand economic development,the president says. As I saw inthe lights across Kabul when Ilanded lights that would nothave been visible just a fewyears earlier.

It is a disconcerting obser-vation for Obama to make .During the worst years in Iraq,when the Bush admi nistra -tion had no real progress topoint to, ocials used to oerup the exact same evidence ofsuccess. It was one of our firstimpressions, one GOP ocialsaid in 2006, after landing inBaghdad at the height of thesectarian violence. So manylights shining brightly. So it isto the language of the Iraq Warthat the Obama administra-

tion has turned talk of prog-ress, of city lights, of metricslike health care and education.Rhetoric that just a few yearsago they would have mocked.They are trying to manipu-late perceptions because thereis no definition of victory be-cause victory is not even de-fined or recognizable, says Ce-leste Ward, a senior defenseanalyst at the RAND Corpo-ration who served as a politicaladviser to U.S. commanders in

Iraq in 2006. Thats the gamewere i n r ight now. What w eneed, for strategic purposes,is to create the perception thatwe didnt get run o. The factson the ground are not great,and are not going to becomegreat in the near future.

But facts on the ground, ashistory has proven, oer lit-tle deterrent to a military de-termined to stay the course.Even those closest to Mc-Chrystal know that the risinganti-war sentiment at home

doesnt begin to reflect howdeeply fucked up things arein Afghanistan. If Americanspulled back and started pay-ing attention to this war, itwould become even less pop-ular, a senior adviser to Mc-Chrystal says. Such realism,however, doesnt prevent ad-vocates of counterinsu rgencyfrom dreaming big: Instead ofbeginning to withdraw troopsnext year, as Obama promised,the military hopes to ramp upits counterinsurgency cam-paign even further. Theresa possibility we could ask foranother surge of U.S. forcesnext summer if we see successhere, a senior military ocialin Kabul tells me.

Back in Afghanistan, lessthan a month after the WhiteHouse meeting with Karzaiand all the talk of progress,McChrystal is hit by the big-gest blow to his vision of coun-terinsurgency. Since last year,the Pentagon had been plan-ning to launch a major mili-tary operation this summer inKandahar, the countrys sec-ond-largest city and the Tal-ibans original home base. Itwas supposed to be a decisiveturning point in the war theprimary reason for the troopsurge that McChrystal wrestedfrom Obama late last year. Buton June 10th, acknowledgingthat the military still needs to

lay more groundwork, the gen-eral announced that he is post-poning the oensive until thefall. Rather than one big battle,like Fallujah or Ramadi, U.S.troops will implement whatMcChrystal calls a rising tideof security. The Afghan policeand army will enter Kandaharto attempt to seize control ofneighborhoods, while the U.S.pours $90 million of aid intothe city to win over the civilianpopulation.

Even proponents of counter-insurgency are hard-pressedto explain the new plan. Thisisnt a classic operation, says aU.S. military ocial. Its notgoing to be Black Hawk Down.There arent going to be doorskicked in. Other U.S. ocialsinsist that doors are going tobe kicked in, but that its goingto be a kinder, gentler oensivethan the disaster in Marja.The Taliban have a jackbooton the city, says a militaryofficial. We have to remove

them, but we have to do it ina way that doesnt alienate thepopulation. When Vice Presi-dent Biden was briefed on thenew plan in the Oval Oce,insiders say he was shocked tosee how much it mirrored themore gradual plan of coun-terterrorism that he advocat-ed last fall. This looks likeCT-plus! he said, accordingto U.S. ocials familiar withthe meeting.

Whatever the nature of thenew plan, the delay under-scores the fundamental flawsof counterinsurgency. Afternine years of war, the Talibansimply remains too stronglyentrenched for the U.S. mili-tary to openly attack. The verypeople that COIN seeks to winover the Afghan people donot want us there. Our sup-posed ally, President Karzai,used his influence to delaythe oensive, and the massiveinflux of aid championed byMcChrystal is likely only tomake things worse. Throw-ing money at the problem exac-erbates the problem, says An-drew Wilder, an expert at TuftsUniversity who has studied theeffect of aid in southern Af-ghanistan. A tsunami of cashfuels corruption, delegitimiz-es the government and createsan environment where werepicking winners and losers a process that fuels resentment

and hostility among the civil-ian population. So far, coun-terinsurgency has succeededonly in creating a never-end-ing demand for the primaryproduct supplied by the mili-tary: perpetual war. There is areason that President Obamastudiously avoids using theword vict ory when he talksabout Afghanistan. Winning,it would seem, is not really pos-sible. Not even with StanleyMcChrystal in charge.

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