Rolling Stone Magazine's Will Dana Tells Imus What the Media is Missing

Will Dana, the managing editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, told Imus today that The Runaway General, by Michael Hastings, is a more nuanced and detailed article than the media has been reporting.

The story, in which General Stanley McChrystal, the Commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, calls Obama and members of his administration icky names, also “looks at the policy in much greater detail, and points out some of the flaws and assumptions in the counterinsurgency strategy,” said Dana. “I think that’s what we should be discussing.”

But why do that, when the lowbrow stuff is so much more fun?

Hastings, a young, ambitious reporter, was granted unanticipated access to McChrystal, and happened to be with the General in Paris when his entire operation was grounded for a few days because of the erupting volcano in Iceland.

“Michael just stayed, and they didn’t seem to mind much having him around,” said Dana, pointing out that most of the controversial comments actually took place within the first 24 hours of Hastings’s time with the troops. “It wasn’t like being there for those five days revealed all this stuff. It happened pretty quickly.”

To Dana, the “huge and disquieting” questions raised in the article—like whether it’s possible for America to rebuild Afghanistan from the ground up, fight the bad guys, build a new government, and win the hearts and minds of the people—are very depressing.

“In practice, it’s a very messy business,” he said of America’s strategy in the country. Another question raised in the article focuses on rules of engagement, which soldiers described as being “so circumscribed that they can’t defend themselves,” Dana added.

“They end up pulling back into their billets rather than going out and patrolling, because they almost don’t want to encounter hostile forces, because they’re going to have to shoot them,” said Dana. “But if they shoot them, they’re going against the counterinsurgency strategy.”

Hastings notes in his piece that the last person to do anything successfully under these kinds of conditions in Afghanistan was Genghis Khan. “I’m not sure the peace side of the Genghis operation was very robust,” Dana joked.

He maintained that all the comments made in the article—whether by McChrystal himself or by his aides—are accurate, and that nobody has said otherwise. As for whether Hastings ever sat down the McChrystal to establish ground rules, Dana said, “I’m not sure the guy even sits. He’s just going and you just kind of try to keep up with him. I think he knew what he was doing.”

Some of the scenes in The Runaway General take place when the reporter and McChrystal’s aides were out drinking, but Dana assured Imus these “sophisticated operators” knew what they were doing and saying.

While much of the focus will be on McChrystal’s future as as result of this article, Dana thinks other points are more resonant. “Is this war something we should be fighting, that we can win?” he said. “Is this limitless, boundless strategy the thing we should be employing, or should it be, like Biden is saying, a much more focused, counterterrorism strategy?”

He senses that people like McChrystal, General David Petraeus, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, talked Obama into adopting this strategy. This did not surprise the I-Man, who said, “The President probably figured, I don’t know what I’m doing, maybe they do.”

-Julie Kanfer