How lessons in the dark arts of special ops led McChrystal to the edge

[Demeter]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-lessons-in-the-dark-arts-of-special-ops-led-mcchrystal-to-the-edge-2009975.html

From watching 'Kill TV' to leading undercover night raids, the two-star general was on a brutal, bleak journey

By Kim Sengupta

June 25, 2010 "The Independent" -- They called it the "Death Star" because according to one source who worked inside it, "you could just reach out with a finger and eliminate" somebody. On the walls were banks of television screens, known by the special forces boys as "Kill TV", where footage from image-intensifier cameras of the enemy being blown up by air strikes, or being gunned down by undercover hit teams was shown.

This place was "the Machine", a state-of-the-art military command centre hidden away in an airbase in Balad, a desolate stretch of land north of Baghdad. It was created by Major General Stanley McChrystal, the chief of US Special Forces, the most secretive force in the American military. Here, in the permanently darkened communications cockpit, dozens of US and British (SAS) personnel would gather around as nightly raids took place against al-Qa'ida and their insurgent allies.

Sometimes McChrystal would lead the raids himself, his squad of elite undercover combat troops, known as Delta Force, being told at the last minute that the commander was coming along for the ride. No one was quite sure what the Pentagon policy was on two star generals going on such dangerous missions, but then very few people in the US Department of Defence, and even fewer outside it in Washington, were even aware of these shadowy operations going on in Iraq.

This was the secret and violent world which shaped Stanley McChrystal, who on Wednesday was sacked from his job as commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan. The irony, as his colleagues were pointing out yesterday, was that his spectacular downfall was not due to some illicit military action, but because of a magazine article his aides had arranged in order to publicise his most recent high-profile public career....MORE AT LINK

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[bemildred]

1. Stanley ain't the first wannabe cowboy/hero/conqueror to come along.

The only thing interesting here is that these naive bozos seem to think that all the high-tech video game shit means they get to win.