"Mysterious" Black OPS General taking over command of all U.S. Forces in Afghanistan



A Newsweek article from June 2006:

The Hidden General Stan McChrystal runs 'black ops.' Don't pass it on 
Newsweek ^ | June 26, 2006 | Michael Hirsh and John Barry 

Posted on June 19, 2006 4:46:19 PM EDT by RDTF

June 26, 2006 issue - No one would have mentioned his name at all if President George W. Bush hadn't singled him out in public. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, West Point '76, is not someone the Army likes to talk about. He isn't even listed in the directory at Fort Bragg, N.C., his home base. That's not because McChrystal has done anything wrong—quite the contrary, he's one of the Army's rising stars—but because he runs the most secretive force in the U.S. military. That is the Joint Special Operations Command, the snake-eating, slit-their-throats "black ops" guys who captured Saddam Hussein and targeted Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

JSOC is part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to "work the dark side" after 9/11. To many critics, the veep's remark back in 2001 fostered his rep as the Darth Vader of the war on terror and presaged bad things to come, like the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. But America also has its share of Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls "the shadows." And McChrystal, an affable but tough Army Ranger, and the Delta Force and other elite teams he commands are among them.

After the Zarqawi strike, multinational forces spokesman Gen. Bill Caldwell refused to comment on JSOC's role, saying, "We don't talk about when special operating forces are involved." But when Bush revealed to reporters that it was McChrystal's Special Ops teams that had found Zarqawi, Caldwell had to gulp and say (to laughter), "If the president of the United States said it was, then I'm sure it was."

 

And 3 years later, this Lt. General McChrystal is now taking over the Afghan leadership only 11 months after Gen. David McKiernan took his post as Commander.

U.S. Commander in Afghanistan to Be Replaced

May 11, 2009 11:00 AM

RaddatzABC News' Martha Raddatz reports: Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to make an announcement this afternoon that Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former special operations commander.  McChrystal, the director of the Joint Staff, is a three star but will soon be awarded a fourth star.

McKiernan has been in place only 11 months and will not move to another assignment.  This change in command during a time of war is a large statement about Gate's faith in McKiernan's leadership.  While Gen. George Casey was replaced in Iraq by Gen. David Petraeus in 2007, it was after two and a half years and Casey was then made chief of staff of the Army.   

More to come after the secretary's press conference.

 


No telling what this could lead too... 65,000 troops under former JSOC and Black Ops top General? More mass death I suppose... 100% black op tactics?

Posted by Mr. E at 5/11/2009 1:40 PM
Categories: American empire, Iraq War, Middle East
 

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