McChrystal's background

From an earlier article in May, Gareth Porter talks about McChrystal's background, who was basically in charge of Rumsfeld's assassination program. Their operations have caused much civilian resentment among Afghans, along with many deaths. For example, Porter reported that "the airstrike in western Farah province that killed nearly 150 civilians last week, provoking protests by hundreds of university students in Kabul, was also ordered by Special Operations Forces."
Also, McChrystal’s nomination to become director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in May 2008 was held up for months while the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated a pattern of abuse of detainees by military personnel under his command. Sixty-four service personnel assigned or attached to Special Operations units were disciplined for detainee abuse between early 2004 and the end of 2007.

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As commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from April 2003 to August 2008, he was preoccupied with pursuing high value al Qaeda targets and local and national insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – mostly through targeted raids and airstrikes.

McChrystal spent an unusual five years as commander of JSOC, because he had become a close friend of then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld came to view JSOC as his counter to the covert operations capabilities of the CIA, which he hated and distrusted, and Rumsfeld used JSOC to capture or kill high value enemy leaders, including Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda’s top leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In 2005, JSOC’s parent command, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), was directed by Rumsfeld to "plan, synchronize and, as directed, conduct global operations against terrorist networks in coordination with other combatant commanders". That directive has generally been regarded as granting SOCOM the authority to carry out actions unilaterally anywhere on the globe.

Under that directive, McChyrstal and JSOC carried out targeted raids and other operations against suspected Taliban in Afghanistan which were not coordinated with the commander of other U.S. forces in the country. Gen. David Barno, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has said that he put a stop to targeted airstrikes in early 2004, but they resumed after he was replaced by McKiernan in 2005.