Clueless Chameleon Kilmead
Careerist Chameleon McChrystal
Kilmead / McChrystal Interview
Brian the “Chameleon” Kilmead continues to amaze with his malleable moral compass and pliable political philosophy (see: Memo to Brian Kilmead: “Show Me Evidence of Corporate Price-Gouging!” dated 2024/06/06).
On 26 May 2025, Kilmead interviewed General Stanley McChrystal about his book On Character: Choices That Define a Life.
I’ve never served under McChrystal but I have served under other graduates of the U.S. Military Academy.
The ratio of those I would voluntarily serve under in combat is about 10:1 against.
The military academies should be closed as an anachronistic throwback to its’ origin – Imperial Germany under Bismarck in which the sons of wealthy or influential were sent to military schools to “establish a professional officer corps.”
What it really created was an elitist cadre of higher rank who had no (and continue not to have) experience in the real world or the real military.
Today, graduates of the U.S. Military Academy (and the other academies) graduate a week or two earlier than their lesser mortal commissioned officers from universities’ ROTC programs where they were exposed to a much broader mindset and “out of the box” thinking. Early graduation is designed by congress to give tar buckets (in more ways than one) date of rank superiority over their lesser peers.
While Musk and DOGE are looking for Fraud, Waste and Abuse they should take a look at the retention rate of academy-commissioned officers who receive a “free” education at taxpayers’ expense with the number that stay longer than their six year active duty commitment. It ain’t cost effective.
The Pentagon reeks with military academies “ring knocking, West Point Protection Society” officers in which Pentagon career managers ensure academy graduates are given the most career enhancing assignments over their more plebian ROTC graduates.
Ergo McChrystal hitting all the “right” assignments to make general.
A retired army author back in the day wrote a book about how to make general. I don’t remember the title but I do remember his premise that, statistically, the best ways to make general rank is threefold: 1. be the son of a general (MacArthur); 2. marry the daughter of a General (Powell) or 3. marry the daughter of the Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy (Petraeus).
O.M.G.!!! I’m shocked and amazed!
General Stanley McChrystal is the son of Major General Herbert J. McChrystal!
I don’t know whether to describe the Pentagon as incestuous, nepotistic – or both! Regardless, it explains a lot about it’s lock-step thinking and institutionalized C.Y.A.
Military academies are the military version of the “self-made man” billionaire in which his father gives him a million dollars to “start out” – except most of those “self-made” sons and daughters get out of the military immediately after their minimum commitment to profit off the prestige of having attended an academy at tax payer expense. This prestige is as well deserved as an Ivy League diploma.
The Pentagon’s hero-making Propaganda machine rivals any in D.C., Moscow or on Wall Street.
I’ve only admired and respected one general in my military career: Major General Sidney Shachnow (November 23, 1934 – September 27, 2018). He was not a military academy graduate. Having been enlisted, he took care of his troops better than any general I’ve ever known – even after he retired. He was the first commanding general of Special Forces Command. He didn’t varnish the Truth to seek another star.
Maj. General Schachnow once told a group of us SF officers at a professional development pay day activity at Ft. Bragg “anything above Major is political.” I found that to be true in every sense.
A four-star general once told a class at the Army’s Command & General Staff College years ago “You know most of you don’t deserve to be here and are here because you kissed ass.” (or words to that effect).
A more recent egregious example of lack of integrity in the general ranks is that of DEI Marine Special Operations Commander, Major General Daniel Daijin Yoo (see: Flash! MARSOC Warriors Vindicated! DEI MARSOC General Yoo Humiliated! dated January 24, 2025 this site).
McChrystal, according to Wikipedia, “was reportedly known for saying what other military leaders were thinking but were afraid to say; this was one of the reasons cited for his appointment to lead all forces in Afghanistan.”
Is this true?
During McChrystal’s interview with Kilmead, he said “You can’t tell Congress we can’t win in Afghanistan even if you know its true because of the effect it would have on the morale of the troops. So, I told them we could even though I thought it was 50-50 at best.” WTF! Every service member in Afghanistan knew the US couldn’t win!
Shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 McChrystal delivered a nationally televised Pentagon briefing saying “I would anticipate major combat engagements are over.”
He was off by almost twenty years.
In September 2009, McChrystal, in true West Point / Westmoreland tradition, submitted a 66-page report to Defense Secretary Robert Gates calling for more troops in Afghanistan saying “We are going to win.” McChrystal warned that the war in Afghanistan might be lost if more troops were not sent, but the report ends on a note of cautious optimism: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”
He was off – and wrong- by about ten years.
He told Kilmead during the interview he knew at the time it was not winnable.
That’s called putting your career over the lives of your soldiers – like most commanders in both Afghanistan and Iraq did.
(see: The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock, August 31, 2021)
McChrystal was also criticized for his role in the aftermath of the 2004 death by friendly fire of Ranger and former professional football player Pat Tillman. Within a day of Tillman’s death, McChrystal was notified that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire. Shortly after, McChrystal was ‘put in charge’ of paperwork to award Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for valor.
That process is statutorily initiated by the soldier’s immediate field commander.
On 28 April 2004, six days after Tillman’s death, McChrystal approved a final draft of the Silver Star recommendation and submitted it to the acting Secretary of the Army -knowing it to be a false official statement [punishable under the UCMJ]. The recommendation deliberately omitted any mention of friendly fire including the phrase “in the line of devastating enemy fire“, and was accompanied by fabricated witness statements.
On 29 April, McChrystal sent an urgent memo warning White House speechwriters not to quote the medal recommendation in any statements they wrote for President George H. Bush because “it might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman’s death became public.”
McChrystal was one of eight officers recommended for discipline by a subsequent Pentagon investigation – but the “Army” meaning those who told McChrystal to write the fake recommendation and cover up Tillman’s real cause of death – declined to take action against him.”
As far as writing a book on Character, McChrystal should be awarded the Regis Debray Prize for dissembling. Undeniably his West Point Protection Society guaranteed his appointment to the best assignments and he had great troops make him look good.
But his integrity appears to be conditional upon carrying the PC banner for war – and violates the West Point creed: “I will never tell a lie nor tolerate anyone who does.”
That loyalty to the West Point Protection Pentagon line earned him an exemption to the federal service law that requires four-star general officers to hold their rank for three years in order to retain that rank in retirement. He resigned from the Army well before the three years.
That is a gratuity tens of thousands of other service members don’t get. Not ratting on those in the Pentagon who told him to write a fictitious Silver Star recommendation turned out to be very profitable.
Post-retirement gratuities include McChrystal being on the “advisory” board of Knowledge International, a licensed arms dealer whose parent company is EAI, a business “Very close” to the United Arab Emirates government. His “advisory” capacity is that of influence peddler knowing what doors in Congress and the Pentagon to open and whose palms to “grease.”
On 8 January 2013, McChrystal appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and endorsed stronger gun control laws saying “assault” weapons were for the battlefield, not schools or streets.”
In 2014, McChrystal endorsed Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat.
After speculation he might be considered for Donald Trump’s running mate in the 2016 presidential election. McChrystal made it known he would “decline consideration for any role in a Trump administration.” On 16 November 2016, McChrystal rejected the offer to be Trump’s first choice as Secretary of Defense saying “I’ve been watching the campaign and I don’t think I’d be a good fit for the . . . team.”
In May 2020, the Washington Post reported: ” A new Democrat-aligned political action committee advised by retired army general Stanley McChrystal is planning to deploy technology to combat efforts by President Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic. The group, Defeat Disinfo, will map discussions of the president’s claims on social media . . . paying users to take sides against the president.”
How’d that turn out? Everything Trump said about COVID turned out to be true.
Again on a 1 October 2020 Morning Joe program, McChrystal endorsed Democrat nominee Joe Biden for president saying “You have to believe your commander-in-chief, at the end of the day, is someone you can trust, and I can trust Joe Biden.”
On 26 September 2024, McChrystal endorsed Kamala Harris for president explaining that he had cast his ballot and chose Harris based on her character and that her strength, temperament, and values stood in contrast to Donald Trump.”
This proves Dostoevsky: “You can be totally convinced and still be completely wrong.” – The Idiot, 1869.
It also proves a well protected, careerist military officer who fails to tell Truth to Power when it can save thousands of lives and endorses such lame-brained, corrupt people as Biden and Harris is not someone who should be writing a book on “Character.”
McChrystal gives Jake Tapper a run for his money on hubris and hypocrisy.
Kilmead gives Trump competition for the most militarily / geo-politically ignorant public figure.
