General Mc. Chrystal Story by Michael Hastings Inspired War Machine, Starring Brad PittHowd I get screwed into going to this dinner demands Gen. Stanley Mc. Chrystal. Its a Thursday night in mid April, and the commander of all U. S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four star suite at the Htel Westminster in Paris. Hes in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since Mc. Chrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germanys president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,5. Mc. Chrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 4. Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him. The dinner comes with the position, sir, says his chief of staff, Col. If you measure in dollars, the video game industry is bigger than music and movies. If you measure by baby names, though, games are still just kid stuff. The Runaway General The Profile That Brought Down McChrystal. The Rolling Stone profile of Stanley McChrystal that changed history. Princess Leia Organa Character on IMDb Movies, TV, Celebs, and more. Read all the hottest movie news. Get all the latest updates on your favorite movies from new releases to timeless classics, get the scoop on Moviefone. Charlie Flynn.  Mc. Chrystal turns sharply in his chair. Hey, Charlie, he asks, does this come with the positionMc. Leia_hologram.jpg' alt='2010 Blockbuster Movies Run Leia Run Your Pool' title='2010 Blockbuster Movies Run Leia Run Your Pool' />Chrystal gives him the middle finger. The general stands and looks around the suite that his traveling staff of 1. The tables are crowded with silver Panasonic Toughbooks, and blue cables crisscross the hotels thick carpet, hooked up to satellite dishes to provide encrypted phone and e mail communications. Dressed in off the rack civilian casual blue tie, button down shirt, dress slacks Mc. Chrystal is way out of his comfort zone. Paris, as one of his advisers says, is the most anti Mc. Chrystal city you can imagine. The general hates fancy restaurants, rejecting any place with candles on the tables as too Gucci. He prefers Bud Light Lime his favorite beer to Bordeaux, Talladega Nights his favorite movie to Jean Luc Godard. Besides, the public eye has never been a place where Mc. Chrystal felt comfortable Before President Obama put him in charge of the war in Afghanistan, he spent five years running the Pentagons most secretive black ops. Whats the update on the Kandahar bombing Mc. Chrystal asks Flynn. The city has been rocked by two massive car bombs in the past day alone, calling into question the generals assurances that he can wrest it from the Taliban. We have two KIAs, but that hasnt been confirmed, Flynn says. Mc. Chrystal takes a final look around the suite. Studio Ghibli has, as a whole, one of the most impressive and beautiful libraries of any film studio in history. In one montage, see how the studios ideas and. The latest travel information, deals, guides and reviews from USA TODAY Travel. Blockbuster Movies Run Leia Run The JewelsAt 5. Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn. His slate blue eyes have the unsettling ability to drill down when they lock on you. If youve fucked up or disappointed him, they can destroy your soul without the need for him to raise his voice. Id rather have my ass kicked by a roomful of people than go out to this dinner, Mc. Chrystal says. He pauses a beat. Unfortunately, he adds, no one in this room could do it. With that, hes out the door. Whos he going to dinner with I ask one of his aides. Some French minister, the aide tells me. Its fucking gay. The next morning, Mc. Chrystal and his team gather to prepare for a speech he is giving at the cole Militaire, a French military academy. The general prides himself on being sharper and ballsier than anyone else, but his brashness comes with a price Although Mc. Chrystal has been in charge of the war for only a year, in that short time he has managed to piss off almost everyone with a stake in the conflict. Last fall, during the question and answer session following a speech he gave in London, Mc. Chrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy being advocated by Vice President Joe Biden as shortsighted, saying it would lead to a state of Chaos istan. The remarks earned him a smackdown from the president himself, who summoned the general to a terse private meeting aboard Air Force One. The message to Mc. Chrystal seemed clear Shut the fuck up, and keep a lower profile. Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, Mc. Chrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. I never know whats going to pop out until Im up there, thats the problem, he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one liner. Are you asking about Vice President Biden Mc. Chrystal says with a laugh. Whos thatBiden suggests a top adviser. Did you say Bite MeWhen Barack Obama entered the Oval Office, he immediately set out to deliver on his most important campaign promise on foreign policy to refocus the war in Afghanistan on what led us to invade in the first place. I want the American people to understand, he announced in March 2. We have a clear and focused goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He ordered another 2. Kabul, the largest increase since the war began in 2. Taking the advice of both the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also fired Gen. David Mc. Kiernan then the U. S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan and replaced him with a man he didnt know and had met only briefly Gen. Stanley Mc. Chrystal. It was the first time a top general had been relieved from duty during wartime in more than 5. Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas Mac. Arthur at the height of the Korean War. Even though he had voted for Obama, Mc. Chrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, Mc. Chrystal thought Obama looked uncomfortable and intimidated by the roomful of military brass. Their first one on one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after Mc. Chrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didnt go much better. It was a 1. 0 minute photo op, says an adviser to Mc. Chrystal. Obama clearly didnt know anything about him, who he was. Heres the guy whos going to run his fucking war, but he didnt seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed. From the start, Mc. Chrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the militarys preference for high tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nations government a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority and its funding to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps. In 2. 00. 6, after Gen. Watch Online Free The Fantastic Mr. Fox. David Petraeus beta tested the theory during his surge in Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think tankers, journalists, military officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed COINdinistas for their cultish zeal, this influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan. All they needed was a general with enough charisma and political savvy to implement it. As Mc. Chrystal leaned on Obama to ramp up the war, he did it with the same fearlessness he used to track down terrorists in Iraq Figure out how your enemy operates, be faster and more ruthless than everybody else, then take the fuckers out. After arriving in Afghanistan last June, the general conducted his own policy review, ordered up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The now infamous report was leaked to the press, and its conclusion was dire If we didnt send another 4. U. S. forces in Afghanistan by nearly half we were in danger of mission failure. The White House was furious.