LIST OF GAFFES IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER GEN. MCCHRYSTAL'S COMMAND

McChrystal episode comes amid long string of U.S. setbacks in Afghanistan

Tue Jun 22, 6:34 pm ET
http://tiny.cc/2ou5g

Taken on their own, the insubordinate and bizarre comments made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff to Rolling Stone are enough to raise serious questions about his strategy in Afghanistan and his respect for civilian authority. But Rolling Stone's story also comes at the end of a breathtaking string of terrible developments and milestones in the Afghan war — and thus will likely just accelerate the sense of chaos and aimlessness overtaking the conflict.

[UPDATE: On Tuesday afternoon President Obama said he had yet to decide whether or not McChrystal would be fired, and noted that he and his team showed "poor judgment" in speaking to Rolling Stone as they did.]

The revelation that McChrystal and his staff — they call themselves "Team America" — hold many civilian White House officials in open disdain couldn't have come at a worse time. Since April, scarcely a day has gone by that hasn't brought some unsettling news about the Afghan war. This latest fiasco is but one in a long series of episodes showing that McChrystal — who'd been entrusted with far-ranging authority over the conduct of the Afghan war — has remained largely unaware of the political challenges he faces, while often glibly dismissing dissenting views and civilian authority.

[Other incredible political gaffes]
Here's a review of the parade of horribles emanating from Afghanistan in the weeks preceding McChrystal's outburst:

May 25, 2010: The Army launches an investigation of 10 soldiers near Kandahar for the murder of three Afghan civilians and illegal drug use. One soldier is eventually charged; five remain under investigation.

May 28, 2010: A roadside bombing kills the 1,000th American in Afghanistan.

May 29, 2010: McChrystal calls Marjah, the subject of a massive NATO offensive last spring to oust the Taliban and prop up civilian institutions, a "bleeding ulcer" at a gathering of Afghan officials and civilian strategists. The Marjah campaign was the first prong of the surge strategy McChrystal advocated, and he has essentially acknowledged that it didn't succeed: "I think that we've done well, but I think that the pace of security has been slower. I'm thinking that, had we put more force in there, we could have locked that place down better."

June 2, 2010: A peace summit called by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and attended by McCrystal is attacked by Taliban mortar and small-arms fire. McChrystal has to be evacuated as Karzai offers peace terms to the Taliban over the noise of Taliban rockets. Karzai would later blame the attack on American forces.

June 7, 2010: After 104 months of combat, the Afghanistan conflict becomes the longest war in U.S. history.

June 10, 2010: McChrystal tells reporters at a meeting of NATO defense ministers that a long-planned operation to pacify the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar this summer — designed to serve as a follow-up blow to the bungled Marjah campaign — will be delayed. "I do think it will happen more slowly than we had originally anticipated," McChrystal said.

June 11, 2010: The New York Times reports that, according to two former senior advisers to the Afghan president, Karzai has lost faith in America's capacity to prevail in Afghanistan and is seeking a separate peace with the Taliban without informing NATO. "The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country," one of the advisers told the Times. "President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn't trust it is working."

June 13, 2010: The New York Times reports that the U.S. military has "discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan," in a story that U.S. officials cooperated with. The story contained little new information about Afghanistan's deposits, which Karzai himself had claimed to be worth between $1 trillion and $3 trillion in February; it is widely viewed as a transparent attempt by the U.S. to fight back against the growing tide of negative press.

June 16, 2010: WikiLeaks announces that it will soon release leaked military video of a U.S. gunship attack near Garani, Afghanistan, that killed nearly 150 civilians, including women and children, in May 2009.
June 22, 2010: A congressional report finds that the U.S. is paying millions of dollars in protection money to Afghan warlords — and potentially to the Taliban — to provide security for convoys. The U.S. practice of outsourcing supply transports has "fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials," and provided "a significant potential source of funding for the Taliban," the report said.