no longer in charge. >> today i accepted general stanley mcchrystal's resignation. our mission. >> on the job for only a year, president obama fired mcchrystal after a controversial magazine profile published unflattering and downright dismissive comments about obama administration officials, comments made by mcchrystal and his close aides, ending a long and distinguished military career. >> i've probably spent more time thinking about it than anyone else. at the end of the day, president obama was put in an untenable position, and i put him there. from my command, a story came out that perceived by many people would be almost a direct affront to him, as though you've got a military leader who doesn't respect the commander in chief. >> was it tough to end your -- i think it's a 34-year military career in that way? >> of course. it's still tough. >> after immediately replacing general mcchrystal with iraq surge mastermind general david petraeus, president obama would appoint four more generals to command the war during his administration. >> our coalition is committe

. >> general mcchrystal has been for years the head of special forces, and he brings with him his old don't hire the snake eaters, as they callhemselves, to be america's diplomats. >> he describes the afghan conflict as at a precipice, and we're at real ri of losing the war. but it can be turned around. >> narrator: mcchrystal said a surge of tens of thousands of troops was necessary. obama was reluctant, but wanted to win. he agreed. (helicopters whirring) >> thousands of u.s. troops are now heading to afghanistan. >> in afghanistan, the surge of american troops is now at its peak. >> the final deployment of u.s. troops is arriving in afghanistan. >> the question is, is that troop surge working? >> narrar: general mcchrystal had to quickly deliver on his promise that the surge could bring victory in afghanistan. >> military commanders wanted to show how additional forces deployed by president obama could turn the tide of the war, to show how u.s. forces could knock back the taliban. >> narrator: mcchrystal designed a test case-- 15,000 troops would try to rout the resurgent taliban f

that same year, stanley mcchrystal, than the general of all u.s.ces in afghanistan, also wanted us to no progress was being made, "i think we have made significant progress since the conditions in 2009 and beginning some progress and we will make real progress in 2010." which we remind you was 11 years ago. than stanley mcchrystal was fired for criticizing the obama administration, in particular the total incompetence of the current president, joe biden, and david petraeus took over, and sure enough, general petraeus to quickly declared "progress has been achieved in some critical areas and we are poised to realize more progress." just a year later in 2011 petraeus double down and told lawmakers that year that "the past eight months have seen important but hard-fought progress." speaking that summer to troops in kandahar, the defense secretary at the time echoed that theme. >> and what you have accomplished is extraordinary because over the last year, essentially, you have ejected the taliban from their home territory. and if we can hold this terri

general stanley mcchrystal, former head ofjoint special operations command in 2013 said about his time the torturer, something happens. "i think it has a corrosive effect over time. "i think you move down a path that is difficult to come back from." does it affect you? does it change you in some way? i think it makes you more empathetic to what people are experiencing. remember that the reason that waterboarding wasn't done more than it was was because the interrogators didn't want to do it. we had agreed to waterboard those people to stop these catastrophic attacks, and once it seemed like we'd got enough information to be able to do that, we weren't interested in doing that again. waterboarding was never the first or best choice for any of these people, and we went out of our way to try to avoid doing that. and so i think it's one thing to burn people in cages and nail people to trees and crucify children and bury people up to their necks and throw rocks at them and that sort of stuff. i think it is tough to come back from that. i think it is difficult. has it been tough for you? no,

as role here, and i'm sure, you know of general family mcchrystal. he served as commander of us and nato forces . and i've got a son in 2009 to 2010. so this is what he explained in the run up to the 2009 serge of us troops. he said the objective was that the government of a gun assigned sufficiently control its territory to support regional stability on prevent its use for international terrorism. if you look at that objective specifically, was that achieved again, there have been many objectives stated by many people. over the past 20 years. you can see recordings and they're all over the media now of our current representative masters, all my homicide saying that our objective in going into afghanistan was to eradicate the remnants of the taliban and bring democracy. that is something that he said back in 2002 different people have said different things with different levels of authority. one thing i think is clear, we did not have a single unified objective. as we were in afghanistan, there were always multiple objectives stated by different peop

at the same time, president obama felt that he had general mcchrystal and petraeus had perhaps pushedheir case too far. at the same time as announcing the surge, he also announced a withdrawal date. that sends very mixed messages to the enemy and to our afghan allies. by the time we get to 2016, i think it was a bipartisan weariness with war reflected in the country. we got a sense of, let's just get out of here. policymakers have forgotten the reason we weren't there -- we went there, which was just and politically the right thing to do, militarily, the right thing to do. this stopped other attacks from al qaeda on the homeland. it was supported by the united nations. there was this sense of ennui. from 2016 onwards, the taliban knew that we just wanted to get out. ultimately, we get to 2018 and negotiations with the taliban amounted to surrender. in 2020, the so-called -- it did not involve the afghan government. they were excluded. president biden and then-president trump during the most recent election, there was no policy difference between them. there was no ambassador in kabul.

stanley mcchrystal at the time was in charge of u.s. forces in iraq and waged a very political war on background with reporters to push president obama into the surge in afghanistan. joe biden was against that surge, and a lot of what we've seen play out in the last week has its roots in those conversations. and what joe biden delivered today was essentially the vision that i believe he wanted to deliver in 2010, which was, we don't want to put 100,000 extra troops into afghanistan, that we want to focus on bin laden. and to be fair, if we had killed bin laden and left, it would have saved our country ten years of muddling through afghanistan where, you know, hundreds and thousands of people have been killed and billions of dollars have been wasted. >> jon soltz, himself an iraq war veteran, the chairman of vote vets, jon, it's nice to see you, my friend. thanks for joining us tonight. thanks for your willingness to talk on this. i know this can sort of be the bleeding edge of some of these discussions right now. i really appreciate you

stanley mcchrystal at the time was in charge of u.s.ters pushed at obama to push the surge. joe biden was against that surge. and a lot of what we see this week has its roots in those conversations. with joe biden delivered today was the vision that i believe he wanted to deliver in 2010, which is we don't want to put it 100,000 troops in afghanistan. we want to focus on bin laden. to be clear, if we had killed bin laden and left, it would have saved our country hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed and billions of dollars that have been wasted. >> jon soltz, and iraq war veteran and the chairman of votevets, john it is nice to see you. and thank you for your willingness to talk. i think this can be the bleeding edge of some of the discussions. i appreciate you being here tonight. >> my pleasure. >> more next, stay with us. next, stay with us it's an app that compares hundreds of travel sites for hotels and cars and vacation rentals like kayak does for flights. so it's kayak. yeah, like kayak. why don't you just call it k

at the same time, president obama felt that he had general mcchrystal and petraeus had perhaps pushed case too far. at the same time as announcing the surge, he also announced a withdrawal date. that sends very mixed messages to the enemy and to our afghan allies. by the time we get to 2016, i think it was a bipartisan weariness with war reflected in the country. we got a sense of, let's just get out of here. policymakers have forgotten the reason we weren't there -- we went there, which was just and politically the right thing to do, militarily, the right thing to do. this stopped other attacks from al qaeda on the homeland. it was supported by the united nations. there was this sense of ennui. from 2016 onwards, the taliban knew that we just wanted to get out. ultimately, we get to 2018 and negotiations with the taliban amounted to surrender. in 2020, the so-called -- it did not involve the afghan government. they were excluded. president biden and then-president trump during the most recent election, there was no policy difference between them. there was no ambassador in kabul. we