News Release

McChrystal

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NORMAN SOLOMON
Solomon today wrote the piece “From Great Man to Great Screwup: Behind the McChrystal Uproar,” which states: “But the most profound aspects of Rolling Stone’s article ‘The Runaway General’ have little to do with the general. The takeaway is — or should be — that the U.S. war in Afghanistan is an insoluble disaster, while the military rationales that propel it are insatiable. ‘Instead of beginning to withdraw troops next year, as Obama promised, the military hopes to ramp up its counterinsurgency campaign even further,’ the article points out. And ‘counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war.'”

Solomon, author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, visited Kabul last year. He is available for a limited number of interviews.

RAY McGOVERN
McGovern just wrote the piece “Obama’s Truman-MacArthur Moment,” which states: “The Rolling Stone article is also strike two for McChrystal’s insubordination. His first strike came last fall when his recommendation for 40,000 additional troops was leaked to the press. He also publicly dismissed a more targeted approach toward attacking al-Qaeda terrorists reportedly advocated by Vice President Joe Biden.

“The leak of McChrystal’s recommendation came well before Obama had decided on a course of action, but the timely disclosure cornered the President, who didn’t dare push back against his generals and remind them about the U.S. principle of civilian control of the military.”

McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early Sixties and then as a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. He is now a member of the Standing Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

KATHY KELLY
Recently back from over a month in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kelly said today: “Sec. Gates replaced Gen. McKiernan with Gen. McChrystal because he and others in the Obama administration wanted to employ McChrystal’s experience in organizing special operations. In Iraq, that experience involved developing death squads, planning night raids and coordinating undercover assassinations. McChrystal has threatened U.S. national security by fostering, in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, conditions that build intense rage toward the United States. Again and again, in the past year, he has given a wink and a nod to U.S. special operations atrocities and then stood before cameras and microphones to say, ‘We’re sorry.’ …

“Sec. Gates, Gen. Petraeus — as well as President Obama — are just as culpable as Gen. McChrystal for the killing, destruction and criminality that goes on, every day, in Afghanistan. We shouldn’t be lulled into thinking that the most serious offense committed involves a general and his aides making sniggering and critical remarks about U.S. officials. The real crimes committed involve killing innocent people, including children, and prolonging the agony of a war of choice waged by war profiteers.” Kelly is with Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858