Word: mcchrystal
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...here to Zhari district to be storm troopers - that's what General Vance called us - and that's what we were trained for, that's what we like to do. To find, fix and finish the enemy." But the mission changed with the arrival of General Stanley McChrystal, as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in the summer of 2009. "It's not about how you engage the enemy so much now. It's how you engage your district governor," says Brown. "That's a huge change for guys like us - call us knuckle draggers or whatever...
...another war - Vietnam, for certain - an American officer might have cleared the Taliban-controlled area with air strikes. But that sort of indiscriminate bombing doesn't happen in Afghanistan; General McChrystal has issued a series of tactical directives and rules of engagement banning most forms of air support. There are also new rules governing when and how troops on the ground can use their weapons. "Look at these," Ellis told me, tossing a fat sheaf of directives onto his desk. "Some of these are written by freaking lawyers, and I'm supposed to read them aloud to my troops...
...troops hate the new rules. Indeed, a soldier from another of the 1/12's companies sent an angry e-mail to McChrystal, saying the new rules were endangering the troops. The General immediately flew down to Zhari and walked a patrol with that soldier's platoon. "It was a good experience," McChrystal told me later. "I explained to them why we needed the rules. And I've been making it my practice to go out on patrol with other units ever since...
There is a caveat to McChrystal's rules of engagement. A soldier is always permitted to use his or her discretion in a matter of self-defense. But the overall impact of the rules has been a hunkering down, a decidedly less aggressive attitude about going after the enemy, from the air or from the ground. "Day by day, we're watching the Taliban put in IEDs, creeping up toward the town," Ellis says. "I'm losing two inches of Senjaray every day." The effect on morale has been brutal. "Maybe half the guys in Dog Company spent their last...
...Company's outpost. A passenger bus came up behind the convoy, traveling at a rate of speed the Americans deemed suspicious. The convoy tried to signal the bus to stop; the soldiers apparently used hand signals and pen flares, but fired no warning shots according to the McChrystal protocol. But the bus didn't stop and the Americans opened fire; five civilians were killed and 18 wounded. Outraged Afghans poured into the streets in Kandahar to protest. Their support for the upcoming battle was becoming more tenuous, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said he wouldn't approve...