Charlie Rose

NeilMacCallister  01/31/2013 02:04 AM Report

Guy Montag, ..you are such a sniveling cowardly thief !!!

If Mr. Pat Tillman were still here, ..who do you think he would rather sit and share a pizza with? ..YOU? ..or Gen. Stanley McChrystal???

GuyMontag  01/28/2013 09:05 PM Report

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s memoir, “My Share of the Task,” promises to “frankly explore the major episodes and controversies of his eventful career.” However, despite McChrystal’s vaunted “candor,” his memoir whitewashes or ignores all the controversies of his career.

McChrystal has said, “The one thing you can never, and should never want to dodge, is responsibility.” However, he has “dodged” responsibility for his role in “Gitmotizing” Abu Gharib, for the routine use of torture by JSOC forces under his command, for his strategically flawed Afghan War “surge,” for the “Rolling Stone” profile that got him fired, and for his central role in the cover-up of Pat Tillman’s 2004 friendly-fire death in Afghanistan.

McChrystal claims that detainee abuse was the work of a “few bad apples” and that he “never condoned mistreatment of detainees.” However, as Joint Staff VDJ3 it appears McChrystal was involved in importing torture to Iraq by sending Gen. Geoffrey Miller to “Gitmotize” Abu Gharib and by sending SERE instructors to teach torture techniques. After taking command of JSOC, instead of reducing torture, McChrystal approved more techniques until he was ordered to stop most of them after the Abu Gharib scandal (but JSOC didn’t fully clean up its act until the end of 2005). Senator Russ Feingold said, “I am concerned about General McChrystal’s public testimony, which sought to convey that he was ‘‘uncomfortable’’ with various interrogation techniques and sought to ‘‘reduce’’ their use. Given the full history of his approach to interrogations, this testimony appears to be incomplete, at best.”

McChrystal only briefly describes the 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein. However, he failed to credit the Tikrit Delta team & interrogator Eric Maddox (“Mission Black List #1”) for their efforts which directly led to Saddam’s capture (perhaps because it would raise questions about the role of torture in the death of a key detainee who had a “heart attack” at Camp Nama which resulted in Maddox “facing a dead end”).

McChrystal’s “inside story” of the interrogations that directly led to the 2006 killing of Abu Zarqawi totally contradicts the accounts of Marc Bowden’s article “The Ploy” (“the real story is more complicated and interesting”), Mark Urban’s book “Task Force Black” (“multiple sources have confirmed to me the accuracy of Bowden’s article”), and Matthew Alexander’s book “How to Break A Terrorist” (“We found Zarqawi in spite of the way the task force did business”). In reality, Alexander used rapport to get the key intel in a few hours that JSOC’s “best” interrogators had failed to get in three weeks using "old-school" methods!

It appears that McChrystal whitewashed how President Obama was “boxed into” his Afghan War troop “surge,” the failure of his strategically flawed COIN strategy, and his firing by President Obama (he claims he “resigned’) after a controversial profile was published in “Rolling Stone” magazine (he still declines to “confirm or deny” the accuracy of the quotes and implies they were off-the record); for the reporter’s side of the story, see Michael Hasting’s book “The Operators”).

In April 2011, just after McChrystal was “cleared” (the IG report is a joke) by the Pentagon’s NYT reporter Thom Shanker of “all wrongdoing” in the “Rolling Stone” controversy, President Obama appointed him to head up the “Joining Forces” program to support military veterans and their families. In response, Mary Tillman (Pat’s mother) said, “It’s a slap in the face to appoint this man” … “He deliberately helped cover up Pat’s death”… someone who has a heartfelt desire to help families would not have been involved in the cover-up of a soldier’s death…”

McChrystal claims it’s a “misperception” there was a cover-up of Tillman’s death. However, his account is disingenuous and doesn’t withstand informed scrutiny. In reality, General McChrystal played a central role in the Army’s cover up of Pat Tillman’s 2004 friendly fire death in Afghanistan. Although McChrystal was told of confirmed fratricide within two days, he intentionally failed in his duty to pass on notification to the family, he supervised and approved a fraudulent Silver Star recommendation, and he apparently directed others to conceal friendly fire from the medical examiner.

. . .

This past Memorial Day, I spoke with Mary Tillman and she said seeing McChrystal on the news was “like rubbing salt in a wound.” Unfortunately, this old general just won’t fade away; now he’s making the rounds of the talk show circuit peddling his book. In the past, I used to have a grudging respect for McChrystal when he remained silent and simply refused comment on the Pat Tillman story. But, if McChrystal won’t come clean, I feel he ought to take the advice of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who (according to David Sanders on page 107 of “Confront & Conceal”) offered up a barbed assessment of how the White House had “spun” the Bin Laden raid: “I have a new communications approach to recommend … Shut … up.”

Note: For more details, see the post, "Never Shall I Fail My Comrades" -- The Dark Legacy of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, at the Feral Firefighter blog.

NeilMacCallister  01/14/2013 10:37 PM Report

Sorry, tabs, ..but America did not supply the U-boats that sank the Lusitania, ..nor the kamikaze planes that attacked Pearl Harbor.

Neither did the USA supply the nuclear missiles that Khrushchev tried to slip into Cuba in 1962.

We DID supply nuclear educations to the Pakistanis (..should we have not???)

But we did NOT supply the IEDs that killed so many Americans in Iraq, ..nor the shoe bombs, and underwear bombs that threatened civilians in New York and Chicago.

Did we build the planes that were flown into the Twin Towers by those Saudi/Al Qaeda terrorists on 9/11/2001? ..and which killed 3,000 peaceful citizens???

Should we not build airplanes????

***

Have we supplied No. Korea's nuclear missiles? ..or China's nuclear warships???

Have we supplied those missile's which Iran is now using to threaten shipping lanes in international waters???

Are we supplying the rockets being launched nightly into Israel???

***

Nobody likes war, tabs, ..smarter people prefer business, farming, kids, jobs, and progress.

America would stick to business, farming, kids, jobs, and progress,..

..if only the world didn't have so many wild-eyed politicians wanting to be "The One" to "Bend the arcs of History".

Oh well.

tabs  01/11/2013 04:41 AM Report

Point of clarification:

Since WW1 the USA has been the ARMS MERCHANT TO THE WORLD. It was one of the foundations of how the USA became the leading power in the world and helped grow the American Middle Class in the post WW2 world. During the Cold War the USA had a 65% market share of all weapons systems sold to foreign nations. Today one supects that percentage is higher.

jason  01/10/2013 04:34 AM Report

amazing.. the guy said Afghanistan can "still be a success story". all they (Afghan) need is our concept of government, constitution, gender equality, freedom of religion.......it would be so hilarious except he was at the top of the food chain. advising POTUS sending our boyz and girlz to die over there..

jason  01/10/2013 04:18 AM Report

wish they (Bush, Obama) listened to Brzezinski. guns, bombs, missiles do not fix problem, it created a bigger problem. for one, we spent $3 trillion on this adventure and many american lives, all for nothing! except a moment of "high" when we shot our guns off. america's cowboy culture gotta stop. taking out Second Amendment is the first step to revive America.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/10/2013 02:36 AM Report

Corruption, CorruPTION, CORRUPTION!!!!

Anyone corrupt goes to jail.

Replace their opium income by growing their prison industry.

We have the perfect model which we can export.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/10/2013 02:29 AM Report

Yes, you certainly sow the seeds of failure when you create rage.

Killing civilians = RAGE.

Killing the family goat = RAGE.

Killing the family crop = RAGE.

So perhaps the military should be the rule of law and some other agency should be the rule of peace.

We do now have "The Department of Homeland Security" so why not "The Department of Peaceful Nation Building" in conjunction with "The Department of the Establishment of the Rule of Law"?

By the way, it will take at least a generation for anything significant to work in Afghanistan so our timeline is very unrealistic.

We have to grow good Afghan citizens because the good citizens are dead or have left long ago.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/10/2013 02:10 AM Report

The life expectancy really sucks in Afghanistan and is a bit lower than the 45 the General told us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_CIA_World_Factbook_.282 011_estimates.29

mitisursis  01/09/2013 11:35 PM Report

What is fascinating is his personal psychology. The influence of specialization in years of military training and conflict. specifically, he seems to think of it as some new and amazing epiphany - a revelation - that the Afghans react very strongly to civilian casualties.

Isn't that somehow amazing? Isn't it amazing that this human being somehow has become so specialized that it becomes a big learning experience, a profound new discovery, that Afghan people will be very unhappy when their friends and family die?

Massive  01/09/2013 11:08 PM Report

The US military pushes a very strong PR line that emphasizes learning, honest self-evaluation, openness, multidisciplinarianism, etc... As seen in the fall of Patreus, their openness, the access they provide can have it's downsides. But to the extent they do these things, ask all the questions, listen to points of view, and provide access, how does that survive the media culture and the political culture the military relates to? I'm not sure I believe that is their culture, but if it is, they seem to have a problem.

Massive  01/09/2013 10:58 PM Report

It would be great if interviewers had a better understanding of torture than the usual 24H episode.

In counter insurgency, torture is used extensively simply to change hearts and minds, McC raised the spectre of the French in Algeria where large swaths of the whole population had their hearts and minds changed through torture, and other methods of trauma. Or at least it was tried. Getting intelligence is a minor part of it.

The biggest function of the ticking timebomb scenario is to create acceptance for torture. But once torture is accepted it is used in a widespread fashion to brutalize whole populations and "win hearts and minds" This is often policy, or it evolves in the hands of people on the ground who rightly figure that if it is OK for societies to torture for their self-preservation, then it is OK to do the same for personal preservation to unearth terrorists.

Torture is used to get information at times. But that is normally the thin edge of the wedge. Punishment, and suppression of resistance are other goals that torture can achieve. Amnesty Iinternational warns against judging the worth of torture on functional grounds, and arguments against it rest as McC says on moral grounds. Morality in the sense of right and wrong, but also in the sense of organizational morale. As McC pointed out in another context, modern fighting forces are learning organizations, that make use of many different kinds of people. They practice honest self-evaluation, and acceptance of differences. Can the needed morale of such organizations survive the mentality of the torturer.

Justathought  01/09/2013 09:58 PM Report

Although I agree with some of the sarcastic comments and Monday morning quarterbacks, I generally found the interview inspirational... especially the last 5 minutes. ANYONE who get things done and who speaks so eloquently about leadership deserves to be heard in a country and a world so desperately needing it. After the unbelievable Petraeus crash and burn...where is the "McChrystal 2016" bumpersticker?

Max83  01/09/2013 08:55 PM Report

General McChrystal is being mentioned in this excellent lecture:

''TEDxBerlin 11/15/10 - Janine Wedel - Shadow Elites''

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXGcEpI-sI

'' Uploaded on Dec 7, 2010

Janine R. Wedel writes about power, influence, and governing through the unique lens of a social anthropologist. A professor in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University and senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, Wedel is the first anthropologist to win the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Her new book Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market (Basic Books 2009) was named Book of the Month by The Huffington Post in January.

Wedel has contributed congressional testimony and articles and opinion pieces to more than a dozen major outlets, including The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal Europe. She writes a featured weekly shadow elite column in The Huffington Post.

Wedel developed and directs the initiative on Outsourcing National Security at the New America Foundation. She is co-founder and convener of the Interest Group for the Anthropology of Public Policy (IGAPP).

She received a B.A. from Bethel College, an M.A. from Indiana University, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.''

NeilMacCallister  01/09/2013 07:31 PM Report

Let's cool,..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BteIwbKU_iQ

..life goes on.

NeilMacCallister  01/09/2013 05:56 PM Report

I don't give a DAMN about "America" anymore, ..I believe America evaporated YEARS ago!!!

I love my kids, ..I wish them whatever peace they can scrabble!

"Shark" wants to stick knives in his "oppressors", ..any he can imagine.

..and Tabs want to "discuss things" ad infinitum.

I think I will go milk my cow and pray that you all stay away.

tabs  01/09/2013 05:25 PM Report

What is amazing is how a man like Mr McCrystal with his highly evolved analytical process could allow himself or anyone on his team to trust anyone that they didn't know with loose lips? Something is seriously wrong with this picture? This guy just didn't fall off the Turnip truck yesterday and become a general in the US Army. One simply thinks that McChrystal's analytic ability is a thought process and not a natural reflection of his personality. In other words his analytical process only goes so deep.

In a discussion of American strategic and tactical policies with regards to Afghanistan one only needs to REITERATE that one only needs to have read any Afghan history to know that the nation historically has been a loose confederation of Tribes and Warlords who only paid homage to a weak titular King. One whose main function was to be an arbitrator of disputes between those various factions. As such the approach that the US should have followed was one of empowering political forces from the ground up and then forming a loose confederation. Instead the US made its usual mistake of thinking from the top down, which is a paticular affintity of President Obama. If it should happen that Kharzi and his crew should be on the first plane out of Afghan headed for the Rivera after a US withdrawl President Obama should wear a Dunce Cap and be made to sit facing a corner along with GW, Cheney, Rumsfield and the rest of the neocon crew.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/09/2013 05:18 PM Report

The General mentions this . . .

A subsequent Pentagon investigation attempted to challenge the accuracy of Hastings' article "The Runaway General" which quoted anonymously people around McChrystal making disparaging remarks about members of President Barack Obama's national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden.[21]

In response, Rolling Stone stated, “The report by the Pentagon’s inspector general offers no credible source — or indeed, any named source — contradicting the facts as reported in our story, 'The Runaway General.'"

Sounds like the Pentagon needs some lessons from Rolling Stone on investigations and the General's resignation was indeed the right thing to do at the time it was done.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/09/2013 05:08 PM Report

McChrystal was one of eight officers recommended for discipline by a subsequent Pentagon investigation but the Army declined to take action against him.[7][27][28][29]

It was for the Pat Tillman cover-up.

NeilMacCallister  01/09/2013 04:56 PM Report

Dear General McChrystal, ..I hope your memoirs detail how it feels to be gunned-down by a paparazzi racing by you on a motorbike, ..that paparazzi being supported by your service-hating President and 'Commandeerer in Chief'.

Semper Fidelis, ..if that still means anything.

REMant  01/09/2013 02:45 PM Report

I gather Charlie, like a lot of ppl I imagine, thinks there was something more to this, and/or that the general tried to call the president's bluff. Most firings occur because of insubordination, and most insubordination occurs because of fundamental differences. I find it hard to believe the command didn't know Biden et al's position, or that the president simply took umbrage at a reported slight, unless he'd been reading too many biographies.

The Afghan trajectory has in fact followed that in South Vietnam c 1963-64, when we decided Diem had to go, the Vietnamese could or would not go it alone and that we had to send in the 1st Cav Div to prevent the loss of the northern half of the country.

In order to have any chance of "winning" we will have (or would have had) to stay there in considerable force for the foreseeable future. And the longer we stay the more animosity develops between the parties, and not entirely without reason, because it is only human nature for soldiers in this position to resent their charges, and you start getting incidents, especially when they see the special forces types the general is so proud of doing it. On the other hand, when we were in Vietnam, the Vietnamese longed for the French, as they do now for American friendship. Good fences make good neighbors, the grass is greener, familiarity breeds contempt, or whatever. We had the best opportunity to bring this off immediately after 9-11 if we had gone in in force, made a significant attempt to root out those we were after, and left, leaving the rest to solve problems on their own for better or worse. I can't imagine there are very many, especially now, who disagree with that.

I felt the same way about Iraq, assuming it was necessary to depose its govt in the first place. I gather this was Rumsfeld's feeling, too. It certainly would have saved a lot of life, limb and treasure, not to mention, Beltway angst. Both the Iraq and the Afghan "surges" were, however, supposedly aimed at nation-building, much as, believe it or not, was a good part of our Vietnam deployment, even before Tet. And Bush didn't just "surge" the troops, he zapped everyone from the National Intelligence Director and Secretary of Defense down to the theater commander. But it is hard to believe you can build a nation with bribes, barriers and assassination squads, even in this country, tho we try hard enough. The problem is that with the Federal Reserve at the helm, the US hasn't felt it needs anyone in the world sufficiently to spend the time and energy to help them develop, and, hopefully, resolve any social differences. It just slaps a few hands, and greases a few others, that is when it isn't firing missiles at people from several thousand feet. Notably, the Chinese have a different attitude.

While I'm sympathetic with the perennial complaint that Americans don't know as much about the rest of the world as they should, or the people they are so eager to help, nor often even really want to deal with them face-to-face, I don't think this is the future of warfare, in this country at least, and I think actually McChrystal made a mistake going into the military, (and while I'm at it, McCain, too), and I wonder how it is that disciplinary problems turn into disciplinarians.