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The story of the rise and fall of America's 'Runaway General'

The Brad Pitt starrerWar Machine on Netflix is no great shakes. Read the book instead. It's about a gentleman called General Stanley McChrystal, legend among men. Till an article was published...

This weekend, War Machine, starring Brad Pitt and filmed in Abu Dhabi and RAK, made its Netflix debut. A fictionalised account of the challenges faced by the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, the film closely mirrors the meteoric rise and fall of one of America's star generals, Stanley McChrystal.
War Machine got mixed reviews - "a costly flop" according to Variety, "an assured, nervy black satire on America's involvement in Afghanistan," according to the Los Angeles Times. But there is no debate about the extraordinary career of McChrystal.
It began in 1976, when he graduated from West Point, the prestigious US Military Academy. Over the next 15 years, he served in a variety of positions, notably as a member of the elite Green Berets - the US Army's premier special forces unit, and with the 75th Ranger Regiment, a highly trained light infantry unit specialising in dangerous assaults and raids.
McChrystal first became a public figure in 2003, when he was chosen to deliver nationally televised briefings on US operations during the invasion of Iraq, before taking command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees America's secretive special missions across the globe.
Over the next five years, McChrystal became a key figure in US efforts to dismantle Iraq's insurgency. Under his command, JSOC ramped up its operations from 18 raids a month to well over 300.
Major General Bill Mayville, his Chief of Staff, called JSOC a "killing machine" which systematically mapped out and took apart insurgent networks by combining high-tech surveillance techniques, "door-kicking" assaults and American firepower, often with the assistance of outside experts who'd otherwise have been shunned in the ultra-macho culture of the US military's most elite units.
"I'd go into rooms and I'd see big commandos sitting across from 22-year-old female intelligence analysts, and the commandos just sitting quietly as the analysts were the experts, or I'd see civilian young men come out with pierced things all over their faces, which was counter to the culture of the special operators," McChrystal later recalled. "But they brought in expertise and equivalent passion."
Among McChrystal's most notable successes was the 2006 killing of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and one of the world's most wanted men. After tracking one of his advisors to a meeting in the Iraqi town of Hibhib, McChrystal called in an airstrike.
"I had every expectation that his wife and children were there with him," he later told the CBS programme 60 Minutes. "This was a man who had not only personally been involved in killing, but had literally precipitated thousands of deaths in Iraq. It was so necessary to stop him, I didn't hesitate."
McChrystal's unrelenting pace and larger-than-life personality made him a legend among his soldiers. He was said to only sleep four hours, eat one meal and run seven miles a day. He earned the respect of soldiers by participating in dozens of dangerous missions despite his high rank, sometimes unannounced.
"You'd be out somewhere in Iraq, and someone'd take a knee beside you," a British officer who served under him told Rolling Stone years later. "A corporal would be like 'who's that?'and it's McChrystal."
Despite a number of scandals which might have ended the careers of other officers - including the abuse of detainees and a cover-up into the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman, a high-profile American football player turned soldier - in 2009 McChrystal was appointed to take command of all American and international forces in Afghanistan.
Contrary to the wishes of many high-profile figures in the Obama administration, McChrystal publicly called for a massive influx of 30,000 to 40,000 American troops to Afghanistan, to implement a counter-insurgency strategy that would supposedly "win over the hearts and minds" of the Afghans and drive a wedge between the population and the Taleban. McChrystal's strategy, which rewarded troops for restraint, was hinged on minimising civilian casualties by using deadly force only when necessary
"We are here to build, to protect, to support the civilian population," Brad Pitt's War Machine character says in the film. "To that end, we must avoid killing at all cost...we can't help them and kill them at the same time. It just ain't humanly possible."
McCrystal's career came undone at the hands of Michael Hastings, a young Rolling Stone reporter assigned to do a profile of the general. To gain insight into McCrystal and his team, Hastings accompanied the general on a whirlwind tour of Europe, designed to assure America's allies of the Afghan war strategy. Many of the story's most notable quotes were taken during an during an evening of particularly heavy drinking at an Irish pub in Paris.
The article Hastings wrote - headlined "The Runaway General" - was a disaster for McChrystal. Seemingly oblivious that they were on the record, the general and his staff ruthlessly mocked and criticised senior members of the Obama administration, ranging from Vice President Joe Biden ("Biden?" McChrystal said. "Who's that?") to National Security Advisor Jim Jones (who was characterised by a McChrystal aide as a "clown"), Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, and Karl Eikenberry, America's ambassador in Afghanistan.
Reactions to the Rolling Stone piece came quickly. Before the article was even published, McChrystal called Biden to apologise, and put out a written statement saying that it was a "mistake reflecting poor judgment and should have never happened."
"Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honour and professional integrity," the statement said. "What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard."
Then, on June 23, 2010, a day after the article was posted online and two days before it hit newsstands, McChrystal was summoned to the White House where President Obama accepted his resignation. McChrystal's remarkable career was over.
bernd@khaleejtimes.com
Bernd is a gizmo freak with a sweet tooth. He's fascinated by planes and shiny blingy things