I BigBadJohnny, aka John Lake, have been researching news and world events' stories for just about ever. I have never in all that time seen a story as buried and hard to research as the story of Obama's change of command in his appointment of General Stanley McChrystal. Let's see what we can see!

General McChrystal

General McChrystal a four star General rises from the U.S. Special Operations Command. The Special Operations Command is at the forefront of our nation's defense leading the Global War on Terrorism. He took command of 56,000 U.S troops, who serve alongside 32,000 troops from 41 countries in a low key ceremony, replacing General David McKiernan, who was recently fired by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, of the U.S. and Nato troops in Afghanistan on Monday, 13 July 2009. This in the face of new levels of violence in Afghanistan.

"American troops have poured into Helmand province the last several weeks in an effort to stamp out an insurgency that has a strong hold in the world's largest opium-poppy growing region. McChrystal met with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, who warned the American general that the ‘most important element of the mission’ is to protect Afghan civilians."

Speaking before Congress, McChrystal said of the Afghan people, " We must protect them from violence, whatever its nature. We must respect their religion and traditions,’ . ‘But while operating with care, we will not be timid.’

McChrystal has proposed a more protective approach in dealing with Afghanistan.
The four-star general has pledged to reduce the number of Afghan villagers killed in fighting, saying he intends to review US and allied operating procedures with an eye to minimising civilian deaths.

"Although I expect stiff fighting ahead, the measure of effectiveness will not be enemy killed. It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence".

The new American commander in Afghanistan has been given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy that envisions stepped-up attacks on Taliban fighters and narcotics networks.

More specifically General McChrystal (as from an article in the Wall Street Journal) has categorized these changes:
"In a tribal society like Afghanistan's, the key to effectiveness is having personal relationships with tribal elders, which argues for keeping troops in place much longer than currently is the case. But there are limits to the stress that soldiers can endure -- effectiveness degrades severely for anyone who spends too long in combat. And in an all-volunteer military, there is always the danger that if troops are forced to be away from their families too long they might not sign up for another hitch."

With McChrystal at the helm, The U.S. Special Operations Command is creating and maintaining a deployment cycle whereby units spend roughly six months deployed in a war zone and six months at home, keeping tabs on their area of operations while they're away and returning to the same area time after time. This arrangement, which has been in use for several years, allows personal relationships to be cultivated and continued while still giving troops some downtime.

The Wall Street Journal article continues:
"It's an intriguing approach, and one that Gen. McChrystal, ..., is now migrating to the conventional military world. The new Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell is an attempt to strike a balance between personnel needs and war-fighting needs, and it is a move in the right direction."

Finally, from the
South Asia News:

"Washington - The United States' newly installed top commander in Afghanistan has called for an increase in security forces and military spending in the conflict zone, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

"General Stanley McChrystal said that to win the war against Islamist extremists in the country, the US must spend more than the 7.5 billion dollars already budgeted for the training of Afghan security forces.

"The Washington Post cited unnamed Defence Department officials as saying that McChrystal also spoke of a larger deployment of troops. Total US forces in Afghanistan are set to reach 68,000 later this year. "