Really? Is there a General that you do not want to Fire?
Sure enough with Retired General McChrystal, and General Petraeus, Rethink Afghanistan is calling for the firing of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell.
Lt. Gen. William Caldwell’s use of psychological operations (“psy-ops”) experts against Senators and congresspeople visiting Afghanistan is outrageous, and Caldwell should resign immediately.
Caldwell is one of Petraeus’ most important subordinates in Afghanistan, charged with training the Afghan National Security Forces. According to Rolling Stone, he sought to use psy-ops specialists to manipulate Congress into providing more funds and troops for the failing war in Afghanistan.
He and his staff reportedly sought psy-ops experts’ help to “secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge,” and wanted “pressure points” to “leverage” when pushing visiting legislators for funds. When they balked, a Caldwell spokesperson shouted, “It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!”
Caldwell’s actions are disrespectful, dangerous and illegal. We demand his immediate resignation. If he will not give it, the president should fire him.
Really? This is getting birther level crazy. I think someone has watched Dr Strangelove too many times.
ADDED: Here is a good reply to the Stones article. Thanks again to Spade for the find.
Category: Antiwar crowd, I hate hippies
Interesting. Those morons might want to wait until the facts are in before running their mouths like that.
Not that they would ever allow facts to get in the way of their storyline(s).
C’mon, Spork, birthers aren’t THAT crazy 😀
Writing a new book: “The Kabul Kandidate”. Too bad Sinatra’s dead.
This is a good link to go with that: http://www.informationdissemination.net/2011/02/not-stuff-of-bud-light-lime.html
Good find. I sent this to Rethink Afghanistan and will repost their reply.
They’re all calling for Caldwell’s head on the FP blog. First off Hastings sucks and has an agenda. Its also one story from a guy who has or had a 15-6 hanging over his head. I think Caldwell’s staff went overboard and ran with guidnace they didn’t understand. This happens everyday and we’ve all seen it. Special staff guys get overrun by the “meateaters” who know better or are trying to please the boss. I’ve run up against it countless times and I quickly get to the point where I ask to go home because they don’t need me….or something along those lines. In my current unit they do it to our JAG all the time. Whgo has the friggen law degree? In any event this story is proiving to be very interesting. We got PA guidance early yesterday morning as DA is planning for a minor shit storm.
Word is the LTC is question is a TX NG officer. This is significant in that there are no CA or MISO/PSYOP units in the Army Guard.
Other than the 95th CA Bde (Abn) and the 4th POG/MISO Grp (Abn), CA and MISO/PSYOP units are in the USAR.
This guy and his team of TX Guardsmen are, most likely, an IO Cell of some sort which may work closely with the PAO/PIO types.
This entire thing is horseshit…I personally know some of the people who were named in Hasting’s article, and there is no way they would issue illegal orders to a real PSYOP Team or Cell…and by the way, there ain’t no such teams supporting CSTC/NTM-A.
As for Hastings, he needs to have his ass monkey stomped, period.
Rolling Stone has one scalp, McChrystal’s, under its belt. Now it wants Caldwell’s. With two you get a free slurpee.
I maintain: “Psyop” is the new headhunter term for “Dog-&-Pony Show.”
This is the reply that I got back.
Thanks for sharing this, Warren, but the author is using some spurious analysis here. If the IO guys are paid through budgets earmarked for psyops/IO operations, then my understanding is the law has been violated.
As an anecdotal example, i…f I’m paid through a 501c3, and I’m asked by my boss to do phone calling for a candidate, I can’t do it because I’m paid from accounts that are tax exempt due to their nonprofit activity. How one uses one’s salaried time is an official use of resources. Those guys were trained and gained experience using IO resources, the use of their expertise, especially in light of the quotes from Caldwell and his staff (which the author of the article you posted doesn’t dispute) is a clear violation of Smith-Mundt.