General Stanley McChrystal Resigns
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
General Stanley McChrystal, who commands 142,000 troops in Afghanistan from the U.S. and 45 partner nations, has offered his resignation to Barack Obama. The reason for the departure is a profile of the general in Rolling Stone which shows the general as critical of the handling of the Afghanistan war. Bloobmerg reports: “The comments by McChrystal and aides reported in Rolling Stone magazine threaten to fracture a unified front that President Barack Obama has sought to build for the war and distract efforts to hold together an international coalition doing the fighting. Obama reacted with anger upon reading the article, his spokesman said, and officials from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress called McChrystal’s remarks a serious lapse in judgment.” The problem is that no matter how the McChrystal situation is resolved, there will be a major power vacuum in Afghanistan, and the extraction of the country’s $1 quadrillion (rounded up) in gold and other precious metals as per the recently disclosed “Opium Bonanza” could get slightly problematic… not to mention running the whole Taliban sideshow.
More from Bloomberg:
The controversy comes as the U.S. and its allies are confronting rising casualties and setbacks in the effort to reverse Taliban gains and give more responsibility to newly trained Afghan soldiers and police. At the same time, Obama and his aides have expressed frustration with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his efforts to stem corruption and provide services to Afghanistan’s civilian population.
The profile in Rolling Stone’s latest edition, titled “The Runaway General,” quotes McChrystal and his aides as criticizing Vice President Joseph Biden, special envoy for Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, and U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry. As the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Afghanistan, Eikenberry and McChrystal are required to jointly implement U.S. policy in the country.
The general today apologized for his remarks.
“I extend my sincerest apology,” McChrystal, 55, said earlier in a statement e-mailed by the press office of his command, the International Security Assistance Force, in Afghanistan. “It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened.”
Duncan Boothby, a civilian adviser to McChrystal who was responsible for arranging the Rolling Stone interview, submitted his resignation today, a defense official said.
McChrystal himself wonders aloud what he might say at a public forum if asked about Biden.
“Are you asking about Vice President Biden?” McChrystal says with a laugh, according to the article. “Who’s that?”
“Biden?” a top adviser to the general is quoted as saying. “Did you say: Bite Me?”
All those administration officials will likely participate in the White House meeting on Afghanistan.
“I’m sure that the president will say tomorrow that it is time for everyone involved to put away their petty disagreements, put away their egos, and get to work,” Gibbs said.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, said Eikenberry and McChrystal “are both are fully committed to the president’s strategy and to working together as one civilian-military team to implement it.”
Here is the full Rolling Stone article for those who may have missed it.
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