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McChrystal Aides Shocked, 'Heartbroken' After Mag Profile (Updated)

I’ve spoken with a number of current and former aides to General Stanley McChrystal today. None of them felt like going on-the-record; no surprise there. But their reactions to his incendiary profile in Rolling Stone mostly ranged from shock to dismay to sadness to think-I’m-gonna-puke. All of them remain loyal — fiercely loyal — to […]

I've spoken with a number of current and former aides to General Stanley McChrystal today. None of them felt like going on-the-record; no surprise there. But their reactions to his incendiary profile in* Rolling Stone *mostly ranged from shock to dismay to sadness to think-I'm-gonna-puke.

All of them remain loyal -- fiercely loyal -- to McChrystal and to his counterinsurgency approach to warfighting. But they feel like McChrystal was done in by his inner circle, by an adversarial reporter, and possibly by the strains of seven years of near-constant war. Few recognized the man portrayed in the *Rolling Stone *piece. Several expected President Obama to let McChrystal go tomorrow.

"It's heartbreaking for me," said one International Security Assistance Force officer who worked in Kabul. "He's the best officer we have over there. *Rolling Stone's *portrayal of COIN [counterinsurgency] and of McChrystal's strategy as some fringe approach is silly. We're fighting the best strategy we could possibly fight. It's still not a great strategy, because the time for a great strategy passed six years ago. We missed whatever golden opportunities we had by taking our eyes off the ball in Afghanistan when the insurgency barely existed. Now we're doing nation-building under fire. The effort can still be salvaged, but McChrystal was the best man to salvage it."

Inside the Pentagon, feelings are mixed. The Rolling Stone article was a mistake, sure. But mostly, it was a bunch of macho-talk by anonymous assistants. The expectation is that Obama will simply let McChrystal twist in the wind to satisfy a D.C. media frenzy -- and then send the general back to Kabul. The hope is that the White House won't have fatally undermined McChrystal in the process.

In Kabul and inside the Beltway, there's a lot of anger being directed at Duncan Boothby, the strategic communications advisor who arranged the *Rolling Stone *interviews. Boothby, a former producer for Lou Dobbs' television show, spent years counseling generals on improving their outreach. Those senior officers would sometimes appear on the most unlikely of media outlets. Ft. Leavenworth commander Lieutenant General William Caldwell, for instance, promoted the Army's new field manual for operations on the Daily Show.

Boothby is one of a handful of former journalists who in recent years became communications aides to top officers and diplomats. *USA Today's *Dave Moniz now works as a media advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and other top officers. *Time *magazine's Sally Donnelly is today a special assistant to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. The *Chicago Tribune's *Bay Fang currently works in Afghanistan as a strategic communications advisor to the State Department. Some of these advisors were policy-focused. David S. Cloud briefly assisted U.S. ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry before returning to journalism; he's now with the Los Angeles Times. Rosa Brooks, a former Times columnist, advises Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and also serves as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense.

All of these leading officials have public affairs assistants, as well. But with their journalism backgrounds, these strategic communicators are supposed to be more media-savvy than the civil servants or the servicemembers. They largely operate behind the scenes, connecting the officials to influencers and opinion-makers; meanwhile, the public affairs specialists are supposed to set up the bulk of the press interviews. But the boundaries between the two jobs can get pretty porous. So often, there's a bit of tension between the "SC" and "PA" types. Rarely does it rise to this level.

Update: McChrystal's former colleagues are, if anything, even more pissed off than the general's current coterie. “I never thought I would say this,” one field-grade special forces officer tells Sean Naylor. “Until this article I was a huge McChrystal fan. I was just floored at how immature he came across.”

“Every son of a b---- near McChrystal should be fired as well,” the field grade SF officer said. “Every one of those guys.”

Already in Afghanistan, there's a deep divide between the special forces and the regular troops. To oversimplify, the SF guys think they're carrying most of the load. The standard-issue troops view the SF crowd as a bunch of cowboys who overcomplicate the mission by using force recklessly. Lines like this one from the Rolling Stone piece aren't going to help bridge that gap:

"You better be out there hitting four or five targets tonight,” McChrystal will tell a Navy Seal he sees in the hallway at headquarters. Then he’ll add, “I’m going to have to scold you in the morning for it, though.”

Photo: White House

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