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David Gregory talks to author Jon Krakauer about his new book 'Where Men Win Glory' and Gen. McChrystal's part in the cover up of Pat Tillman's death.

GREGORY: Jon Krakauer, I want to get to a key element of your book, "Where Men Win Glory," about Pat Tillman and how it relates to this current conversation about Afghanistan. Because it does involve General Stanley McChrystal, who was obviously critical on the stage now and was critical in the Tillman story of well. As a reminder, if you look at pictures of Pat Tillman, the NFL star with the Arizona Cardinals, decides to enlist in the Army, serves in the Rangers after 9/11. This was certainly a big story when he enlisted. And at the time, General McChrystal was actually head of Special Operations command.

So Pat Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident and ultimately won the Silver Star, and that's what you focus on in the book and in a subsequent piece that you wrote for The Daily Beast. And here's what you wrote: "An October 5 Newsweek article [said, about General McChrystal] that `he has great political skills; he couldn't have risen to his current position without them.

But he definitelydoes not see himself as the sort of military man who would compromise his principles to do the politically convenient thing.' In the week after Tillman was killed, however, this is precisely what McChrystal appears to have done when he administered a fraudulent medical"--excuse me--"a fraudulent medal recommendation"--we're talking about the Silver Star--"and submitted it to the secretary of the Army, thereby concealing the cause of Tillman's death." Briefly explain what happened.

KRAKAUER: The--after Tillman died, the most important thing to know is that within--instantly, within 24 hours certainly, everybody on the ground, everyone intimately involved knew it was friendly fire. There's never any doubt it was friendly fire. McChrystal was told within 24 hours it was friendly fire. Also, immediately they started this paperwork to give Tillman a Silver Star.

And the Silver Star ended up being at the center of the cover-up. So McChrystal--Tillman faced this devastating fire from his own guys, and he tried to protect a young private by exposing himself to this, this fire. That's why he was killed and the private wasn't. Without friendly fire there's no valor, there's no Silver Star. There was no enemy fire, yet McChrystal authored, he closely supervised over a number of days this fraudulent medal recommendation that talked about devastating enemy fire.

GREGORY: And that's the important piece of it. And, and he actually testified earlier this year before the Senate, and this is what he said about it.

(Videotape, June 2, 2009)

LT. GEN. STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL: Now, what happens, in retrospect, is--and I would do this differently if I had the chance again--in retrospect they look contradictory, because we sent a Silver Star that was not well-written. And although I went through the process, I will tell you now I didn't review the citation well enough to capture--or I didn't catch that if you read it you could imply that it was not friendly fire.

GREGORY: Even those who were critical of him and the Army say they don't think he willfully deceived anyone.

KRAKAUER: That's correct. He, he just said now he didn't read this hugely important document about the most famous soldier in the military. He didn't read it carefully enough to notice that it talked about enemy fire instead of friendly fire? That's preposterous. That, that's not believable.

GREGORY: All right, part of this debate. Thank you all very much.

We'll continue our discussion with Jon Krakauer in our MEET THE PRESS Take Two Web Extra. Plus, read an excerpt from his book, "Where Men Win Glory." It's all on our Web site at mtp.msnbc.com. And we'll be right back.

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I suppose Bill Kristol fancies himself the "grown up" during this argument on Fox News Sunday. While discussing whether President Obama should be increasing troop levels in Afghanistan or not, Juan Williams points out that President Obama already gave Gen. McChrystal 21,000 additional troops this year, and the result has been nothing but increased casualties. Later in the segment Kristol responds.

Wallace: I know there are political pressures but I would like to think that this President—I do think that this President is trying to make the right decision. There is no guarantee if you give McChrystal the 60,000 troops that it’s going to work…(crosstalk) …particularly given the nature of the government that is in control in Afghanistan.

Kristol: Look, what is better about giving him, “giving him”—I like that—why do we have to use that formulation?—The President is sending as many troops as he thinks he should send, as many troops as he thinks best to accomplish the mission—unless he wants to abandon the mission. But he doesn’t want to abandon the mission. What argument… what serious grown up argument is there that sending 15,000 is any better than sending 40,000 troops when the generals, Gen. McChrystal and Gen. Petraeus think 40,000 is what we need to adequately resource the counter-insurgency.

Maybe we shouldn’t send so many bullets either—we shouldn’t send too many vehicles. They’re very expensive. I mean this notion that we’re sending—that we’re going to have more casualties is ridiculous Juan. Short term of course when you engage the enemy you might have more casualties. Ask any soldier or marine over there, “Would you prefer to have 110,000 of you or 70,000 of you?”—that we are stretched too thin. If we’re going to fight, let’s fight the war.

So when are you signing up to go over there Bill? Liz? Both of you ready to suit up and go put your lives on the line over there? I think if you asked those soldiers what they'd rather be doing, most of them would rather be home. Not on their third, fourth and fifth tours of duty.

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Contessa Brewer takes the NRCC to task for their remarks about putting Nancy Pelosi "in her place". I don't think I've ever seen her quite this pissed off. Give 'em hell gal.

We've posted a ton of information about the Pat Tillman saga on C&L as heartbreaking as it is and I wanted to remind everyone that the man who is going public with his views on how to handle Afghanistan was deeply involved with torture and Pat Tillman's cover up.

The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up the circumstances of the 2004 slaying. "I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation," Pat Tillman Sr. said.

He later apologized for his role in the cover up.

The Daily News:
The general taking over the Afghan war said Tuesday he was sorry for the coverup of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman's friendly fire death.

"I was a part of that, and I apologize for it," Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told a Senate hearing.

Tillman was killed by fellow GIs in 2004 as his Ranger unit operated in eastern Afghanistan on the Pakistan border.

McChrystal signed off on a posthumous Silver Star medal for Tillman - who gave up a fortune as a pro football player to join the Army after 9/11 - though he knew it might be fratricide and not a firefight.

It took six probes before his family learned the truth: other troops mistook him for the enemy and shot him as he screamed, "I'm Pat F---ing Tillman!"

"There is nothing we can do to automatically restore the trust which was the second casualty," McChrystal said.

But the general, who commanded the supersecret Joint Special Operations Command then, denied the phony narrative of a raging firefight was anything more sinister than "mistakes" made to honor the famous GI.

And then there is his role in our torture policies.
The Nation:

When an anonymous Army interrogator "at great personal risk" blew the whistle to Esquire in August 2006 on an extensive torture enterprise at Camp Nama, he described the then unknown McChrystal as being an overseer who knew the ugly truth. Torture at Camp Nama included using ice water to induce hypothermia. It was not a rogue operation unless we consider Generals like McChrystal "rogues." As Esquire reported:

Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. "Will [the Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?" And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in--they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators.

Later in the piece, when asked where the colonel was getting his orders from the interrogator said, "I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him there a couple of times."

I was watching MSNBC and on Andrea Mitchell's show, pundits wondered if McChrystal would quit if he didn't get the troops he requested. You know, I always thought that soldiers were supposed to follow orders. The president is in charge of the military and serve him. What would happen to a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan who refused a direct order? I understand that he's past that pay grade, but he's way out of line. Hey, I don't mind leaks to the media, that's going to happen, but he's not acting like a high ranking General should, but with his past, are you surprised?

Unlike those in our corporate media, I do not live in awe of military judgment. Like any other specialist, they see the world through the prism of their own narrow experience and of course think the only solution is theirs. Those "solutions" are often extreme, even to the point of condoning torture.

Or, as most people would say, "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, yesterday did little to allay the impression the meeting had been awkward.

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

From everything I've ever read, the generals know their job is to execute orders coming from the White House. I wonder what make General McChrystal think his job description has suddenly changed? Don't tell me he's a Rush Limbaugh fan!

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

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From CNN's State of the Union. Looks like some pushback against the Lindsey Grahams of the world from Jim Jones.

National Security Adviser Chides McChrystal:

President Obama's National Security Adviser James L. Jones suggested Sunday that the public campaign being conducted by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan on behalf of his war strategy is complicating the internal White House review now underway, saying that "it is better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who commands the 100,000 U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, warned bluntly last week in a London speech that a strategy for defeating the Taliban narrower than the one he is advocating would be ineffective and "short-sighted." The comments effectively rejected a policy option that senior White House officials, including Vice President Biden, are seriously considering nearly eight years after the U.S. invasion.

McChrystal's statement came a day after he was challenged by senior White House officials over his dire assessment of the war -- and what it will take to improve the U.S. position there -- during a video conference from Kabul with Obama and his national security team. Obama then summoned McChrystal to Copenhagen the day after the general's speech for a private meeting aboard Air Force One.

Continue reading...

Of course no one in the media is bothering to ask why Obama would have promoted the likes of Gen. McChrystal in the first place given his record.

McChrystal's Pat Tillman Connection:

Now the man who greased the chain of command that orchestrated this great deception is prepared to assume total control of US operations in Afghanistan: Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It was McChrystal who approved Tillman's posthumous Silver Star, a medal given explicitly for combat, even though he later testified that he "suspected" friendly fire.

Yet despite this, both Democrats and Republicans are rushing to heap praise on McChrystal, including Sen. John McCain. It was McCain who rushed to speak at Tillman's funeral and then, when the cover-up became known, pledged to help the Tillman family expose the truth. McCain later turned his back on the Tillmans when they raised the volume and demanded answers. As Pat's mother, Mary Tillman, said last year, "He definitely eased out of the situation. He didn't blatantly say he wouldn't help us, it's just that it became clear that he kind of drifted away."

And now the Tillman family, amidst bipartisan praise for Obama's new general, must once again raise the inconvenient truth.

[....]

What particularly rankles about Obama's choice of McChrystal, whose background is in the nefarious and shadowy world of "black ops," is that his actions in the Tillman cover-up feel emblematic instead of exceptional.

[....]

Clearly President Obama is trying to "own" the war in Afghanistan: upping the troop levels, making it his "central front" in the battle against terrorism and now placing his own general in charge. But the president is also disappointing a generation of antiwar activists who voted for him expecting an end to imperial adventures and torture sanctioned by the executive branch. Now a man who should perhaps be on trial at the Hague is in charge of Afghanistan. Obama needs to know it's not just the Tillmans who are enraged by this terrible choice.

As Siun at Firedoglake notes:

Jones was not the only one to push back on the McChrystal PR campaign this week and it seems that a number of informed voices seem to share my concern that McChrystal is “teetering towards insubordination.”

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »

Why do I feel like I've seen this movie before? I'm hoping against hope for a different ending this time: America having the strength to walk away from something that will drain our resources with no clear goals in sight.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

But Obama is trying to figure out whether that's actually the road he wants to take:

Instead of debating whether to give McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, more troops, the discussion in the White House is now focused on whether, after eight years of war, the United States should vastly expand counterinsurgency efforts along the lines he has proposed -- which involve an intensive program to improve security and governance in key population centers -- or whether it should begin shifting its approach away from such initiatives and simply target leaders of terrorist groups who try to return to Afghanistan.

McChrystal's assessment, in the view of two senior administration officials, is just "one input" in the White House's decision-making process. The president, another senior administration official said, "has embarked on a very, very serious review of all options." The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

Obama, appearing on several Sunday-morning television news shows, left little doubt that key assumptions in the earlier White House strategy are now on the table. "The first question is: Are we doing the right thing?" the president said on CNN. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"

"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there -- beyond what we already have," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." If an expanded counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan contributes to the goal of defeating al-Qaeda, "then we'll move forward," he said. "But, if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or . . . sending a message that America is here for the duration."