McChrystal, McKiernan, both spell death for Afghans.
Related: Lt. General Stanley McChrystal
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WASHINGTON — The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, was forced out Monday in an abrupt shake-up intended to bring a more aggressive and innovative approach to a worsening seven-year war.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced the decision in terse comments at the Pentagon, saying that “fresh eyes were needed” and that “a new approach was probably in our best interest.” When asked if the dismissal ended the general’s military career, Mr. Gates replied, “Probably.”
The move reflects a belief that the war in Afghanistan, waged against an increasingly strong Taliban and its supporters across a rugged, sprawling country, is growing ever more complex. Defense Department officials said General McKiernan, a respected career armor officer, had been removed primarily because he had brought too conventional an approach to the challenge.
He is to be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a former commander of the Joint Special Operations Command. He served in Afghanistan as chief of staff of military operations in 2001 and 2002 and recently ran all commando operations in Iraq.
Forces under General McChrystal’s command were credited with finding and capturing Saddam Hussein and with tracking and killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. His success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan, Defense Department officials said.
Let's see, the REAL STORY on the capture of Saddam Hussein:
"On December 15th, the head of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, Paul Bremer, held an early morning press conference. His first words were "Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him." This was how millions of people around the world learned of the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
A week after Bremer's announcement, a different account of Saddam's capture has emerged.
An article in last weekend's British Sunday Express, says "The full story of the fallen dictator's capture last Saturday in a "spider hole" near his birthplace of Tikrit exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete."
According to the Sunday Express, Saddam was actually captured by Kurdish forces who then drugged him and abandoned him for U.S. troops to find after brokering a deal. The article quotes unnamed British and Iraqi military intelligence officers."
Reader!!!
So they LIED ABOUT Saddam's CAPTURE, too!?!?
Then they have LIED ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!
How can ANYONE believe ANYTHING the MSM "reports" anymore, readers?
Also see: Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op
And see: Occupation Iraq: Tortured Logic and related links for why I no longer believe in "Al-CIA-Duh" or anything else the agenda-pushing, war-promoting, Zionist AmeriKan war press has to report about Muslims!!
At the same time, he will be confronted with deep tensions over the conduct of Special Operations forces in Afghanistan, whose aggressive tactics are seen by Afghan officials as responsible for many of the American mistakes that have resulted in the deaths of civilians.
See: Memory Hole: Sorry We Killed Your Children
Pentagon officials have begun to describe Afghanistan as the military’s top priority, even more important than the war in Iraq. Pentagon officials said it appeared that General McKiernan was the first general to be dismissed from command of a theater of combat since Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War.
The change also reflects the influence of Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took over last fall as the top American commander for Iraq and Afghanistan. General Petraeus served under General McKiernan in Iraq only to surpass him quickly in his rise through the ranks. The defense officials said the two men did not develop a bond after General Petraeus inherited General McKiernan as his Afghanistan commander.
While his unblemished record included service in the former Yugoslavia, General McKiernan found himself unable to win support from the two most recent defense secretaries. As the commander of allied ground forces during the invasion of Iraq, General McKiernan differed with the Pentagon leadership and with his commander, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, when he joined a circle of Army officers who advocated many more troops than were ordered to the region.
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A West Point graduate from the class of 1976, General McChrystal is himself a Green Beret and a Ranger, as well as a veteran Special Operations commander. One spot on General McChrystal’s generally sterling military record came in 2007, when a Pentagon investigation into the accidental shooting death in 2004 of Cpl. Pat Tillman by fellow Army Rangers in Afghanistan held General McChrystal accountable for inaccurate information provided by Corporal Tillman’s unit in recommending him for a Silver Star.
See: New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed
The information wrongly suggested that Corporal Tillman, a professional football player whose decision to enlist in the Army after the Sept. 11 attacks drew national attention, had been killed by enemy fire.
See: The Execution of a Poster Boy
In recent work as director of the Joint Staff, General McChrystal has developed a plan to select a group of some 400 troops and officers to go back and forth from assignments in the region and the United States. While at home, the troops and officers would continue in their military jobs and work on some aspect of Afghan strategy, training or operations. The troops would remain in the cadre for three to five years, depending on the job. The approach is similar to the way General McChrystal ran Special Operations forces.
Most troops now deploy to Afghanistan for about a year or less without any formal training in the region before they go. They often move on to unrelated jobs when their Afghan tours end.
A senior military official who has worked closely on the plan, said that the program should be up and running within 60 days.
You've been warned, "Taliban."
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WASHINGTON - Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, the special operations chief who is President Obama's choice to lead the war in Afghanistan, rose to military prominence due to his single-minded success in a narrow but critical mission: manhunting.
As commander of the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command for nearly five years starting in 2003, McChrystal masterminded a campaign to perfect the art of tracking down enemies, and then capturing or killing them.
Translation: He RUNS DEATH SQUADS!
He built a sophisticated network of soldiers and intelligence operatives who proceeded to decapitate the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq and kill its most notorious leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He has also led the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Looking for Osama?
Good luck.
To succeed in the more expansive and varied Afghanistan mission, military officials and analysts said, McChrystal will have to transcend the perception that he is, at his core, an Army Ranger, an elite practitioner of rapid-fire raids intended to "find, fix, [and] finish" the enemy.
Instead, he will have to embrace the more unwieldy work of building Afghan security forces from disparate tribes, extending governance, and cultivating diplomatic skills - and a thirst for endless cups of tea - that go along with leading a counterinsurgency campaign.
"McChrystal kills people. Has he ever worked in the counterinsurgency environment? Not really," said Roger Carstens, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a former special forces officer. But McChrystal's demonstrated drive and intellect, and his abilities in team-building and problem-solving, have won him many admirers....
Yes, we honor murderers here in AmeriKa -- and the higher the toll, the more the reverance!
McChrystal shuns an armchair-style of commanding, and even as a three-star general he often joins his men on operations, officers said. As the joint operations commander overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, McChrystal spent the vast majority of his time overseas, rather than at his Fort Bragg, N.C., headquarters.
Wow! Maybe the Taliban can bag a bird in this "war!"
Military specialists and officers say one of McChrystal's most important contributions in Iraq was to reach well beyond military circles to build personal relationships with a wide range of civilian officials - bringing together expertise in intelligence, forensics, finances, and other fields in an interagency task force that strengthened his campaign against the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq....
Yup, "Al-CIA-Duh!"
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