Hilarious interview with the General in charge of the Afghan War, Stanley McChrystal, to be released in Rolling Stone magazine.

I'd post it here, but it has some choice expletives so I'll just provide the link (at the end of the post).

Apparently though, President Obama is not too happy with his comments:

Obama Considers Firing McChrystal for Comments

Lauren Frayer
Contributor
(June 22) -- President Barack Obama is furious with Gen. Stanley McChrystal and is considering firing him for a magazine article in which the top military commander in Afghanistan criticizes senior White House aides and his assistants poke fun at administration officials overseeing the war.

Despite an apology from McChrystal earlier in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered the general home to explain himself at the monthly White House meeting on the war. McChrystal had been scheduled to address Wednesday's meeting by video.

"General McChrystal has made an enormous mistake," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this afternoon. "We're calling him here to see what in the world he was thinking."

Asked if McChrystal's job was safe, Gibbs replied, "We'll have more to say after that meeting." He added that "all options are on the table."

He said Obama "was angry. ... You would know it if you saw it."

Obama himself told reporters late this afternoon following a Cabinet meeting that McChrystal showed "poor judgment." Asked if he would fire the general, the president said he would talk speak to McChrystal in person before making any decision.

In the Rolling Stone article, "The Runaway General," McChrystal comes across as frustrated with the White House and most top civilian leaders. The magazine hits newsstands Friday but was released to reporters in advance and excerpted by several news outlets.

In a statement, Gates said he read the profile "with concern."

"Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions," Gates said.

"Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person."

In the article by Michael Hastings, an aide describes McChrystal as "disappointed" by his first Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama, whom he considered unprepared. It goes on to say that even though McChrystal voted for Obama, the two never clicked. And McChrystal is quoted as saying that he found it "painful" when the president reprimanded him last fall for speaking openly about his desire for more troops in Afghanistan.

One of McChrystal's aides calls White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones -- a retired four-star general -- a "clown" who's "stuck in 1985."

Hastings also sat in on a session in which McChrystal and his staff joked about "dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner."

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal is quoted as saying. "Who's that?" Then an aide quips: "Biden? Did you say: Bite me?"

Fallout from the Rolling Stone profile quickly claimed its first casualty when Duncan Boothby resigned as McChrystal's civilian press aide, The Washington Post reported. According to the newspaper, Boothby arranged for Hastings to get access to the general and his staff in preparation for writing the article.

In the profile, McChrystal is portrayed as exasperated by e-mails he receives from the White House's special envoy to Afghanistan, Richard C. Holbrooke. "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," the general is quoted as saying. "I don't even want to open it."

He also questions the motives of the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, after one of the diplomat's messages that was critical of the U.S. war strategy was leaked. McChrystal is quoted as saying he felt "betrayed" and thinks Eikenberry was only trying to protect himself.

"Here's one that covers his flank for the history books," McChrystal said. "Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so.'"

An excerpt from the Rolling Stone article posted on the Facebook page of independent military blogger Michael Yon describes McChrystal's White House encounter:

"Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. 'It was a 10-minute photo op,' says an adviser to McChrystal. 'Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his [expletive] war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed.'"

In another excerpt posted by Yon, Hastings writes: "By midnight at Kitty O'Shea's, much of Team America is completely [drunk]. Two officers do an Irish jig mixed with steps from a traditional Afghan wedding dance, while McChrystal's top advisers lock arms and sing a slurred song of their own invention. 'Afghanistan!' they bellow. 'Afghanistan!' They call it their Afghanistan song.

"McChrystal steps away from the circle, observing his team. 'All these men,' he tells me. 'I'd die for them. And they'd die for me.""

In an interview with CNN, Rolling Stone Executive Editor Eric Bates said everything that was published was on the record, although not necessarily for attribution.

"They gave us a lot of access," Bates said. " We fact-checked it thoroughly, we spent the last two weeks before the story went to press checking with them, checking all of our sources and making sure we had it right."

McChrystal issued a statement today saying he extends his "sincerest apology for this profile."

"It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened," his statement read, according to several news agencies. "Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard."

McChrystal said he has "enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war, and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome."

Obama agreed to dispatch a surge of about 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan only after months of research -- a period many military leaders felt was frustratingly slow. The president has also pledged to begin bringing troops home from Afghanistan in July 2011, a date that some of McChrystal's advisers regarded as arbitrary.

"We're distracting from what the president considers to be an enormously vital mission for our country and for our forces," Gibbs said of the article. "We're in an important time in seeking to make progress in a country that we have been in for a number of years. ... We've got a lot of work to do. Our focus should be on implementing this policy and on creating the security and the governance environment that allows our good men and women to come home."

This isn't the first time a member of the country's top military brass has come under fire for comments he's made to a magazine reporter. In 2009, Adm. William J. Fallon, then head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, was the subject of an Esquire magazine piece in which he questioned the Bush administration's policies. He was forced to retire soon afterward.

Bates said much of the article originated in April, when the writer was in Paris to hear McChrystal give a speech there. Because of ash from the volcano in Iceland, they got stranded and took a bus together to get to Berlin.

"So our reporter was on the road with him for a number of days, went out drinking with him, saw them preparing for speeches, saw them going to meetings, and then also went to Afghanistan, met with them in Afghanistan and traveled to the front in Kandahar and witnessed the general talking to the troops, who were also very disaffected with the course of the war and were very critical of the general strategy," Bates said.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/gen-stanley-mcchrystal-apologizes-for-rolling-stone-magazine-story/19525656