General McCrystal has been relieved of command and will be replaced by General David Petraeus as top Afghan commander.

MSNBC:

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has decided to relieve Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command over all U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, sources tell NBC News.

Obama is scheduled to make an official 1:30 p.m. EDT announcement about the general.

Earlier, McChrystal was seen leaving the West Wing and climbing into a van after his nearly half-hour private showdown with the president.

Via ABCNews.com

McChrystal's comments, as detailed in the Rolling Stone article, do "not meet the standards that should be set by a commanding general," the president said today while announcing the switch. "It undermines the civilian control of the military... and it erodes the trust that is necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan."

The president praised McChrystal for his "deep intelligence" and "love of the country," but made it clear the comments McChrystal and his aides made could jeopardize the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

"All Americans should be grateful for Gen. McChrystal's remarkable career in uniform, but war is bigger than any one man or woman," the president said. "I believe it is the right decision for our national security."

Obama said the change was needed to maintain unity of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and to "hold ourselves accountable to standards that are at the core of our democracy." The president reaffirmed that the change in personnel didn't mean a change in U.S. policy.

For me, the key statement in the President's speech was when he said "disagreement is fine; division is not."

UPDATE: President Obama spoke today in the Rose Garden about McChrystal and Petraeus:

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We've posted a ton of information about the Pat Tillman saga on C&L as heartbreaking as it is and I wanted to remind everyone that the man who is going public with his views on how to handle Afghanistan was deeply involved with torture and Pat Tillman's cover up.

The parents of slain Army Ranger and NFL star Pat Tillman voiced concerns Tuesday that the general who played a role in mischaracterizing his death could be put in charge of military operations in Afghanistan. In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Pat Tillman Sr. accused Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal of covering up the circumstances of the 2004 slaying. "I do believe that guy participated in a falsified homicide investigation," Pat Tillman Sr. said.

He later apologized for his role in the cover up.

The Daily News:

The general taking over the Afghan war said Tuesday he was sorry for the coverup of ex-NFL star Pat Tillman's friendly fire death.

"I was a part of that, and I apologize for it," Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal told a Senate hearing.

Tillman was killed by fellow GIs in 2004 as his Ranger unit operated in eastern Afghanistan on the Pakistan border.

McChrystal signed off on a posthumous Silver Star medal for Tillman - who gave up a fortune as a pro football player to join the Army after 9/11 - though he knew it might be fratricide and not a firefight.

It took six probes before his family learned the truth: other troops mistook him for the enemy and shot him as he screamed, "I'm Pat F---ing Tillman!"

"There is nothing we can do to automatically restore the trust which was the second casualty," McChrystal said.

But the general, who commanded the supersecret Joint Special Operations Command then, denied the phony narrative of a raging firefight was anything more sinister than "mistakes" made to honor the famous GI.

And then there is his role in our torture policies.

The Nation:

When an anonymous Army interrogator "at great personal risk" blew the whistle to Esquire in August 2006 on an extensive torture enterprise at Camp Nama, he described the then unknown McChrystal as being an overseer who knew the ugly truth. Torture at Camp Nama included using ice water to induce hypothermia. It was not a rogue operation unless we consider Generals like McChrystal "rogues." As Esquire reported:

Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. "Will [the Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?" And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in--they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators.

Later in the piece, when asked where the colonel was getting his orders from the interrogator said, "I believe it was a two-star general. I believe his name was General McChrystal. I saw him there a couple of times."

I was watching MSNBC and on Andrea Mitchell's show, pundits wondered if McChrystal would quit if he didn't get the troops he requested. You know, I always thought that soldiers were supposed to follow orders. The president is in charge of the military and serve him. What would happen to a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan who refused a direct order? I understand that he's past that pay grade, but he's way out of line. Hey, I don't mind leaks to the media, that's going to happen, but he's not acting like a high ranking General should, but with his past, are you surprised?

Unlike those in our corporate media, I do not live in awe of military judgment. Like any other specialist, they see the world through the prism of their own narrow experience and of course think the only solution is theirs. Those "solutions" are often extreme, even to the point of condoning torture.

Or, as most people would say, "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.

The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid.

Gen James Jones, the national security adviser, yesterday did little to allay the impression the meeting had been awkward.

Asked if the president had told the general to tone down his remarks, he told CBS: "I wasn't there so I can't answer that question. But it was an opportunity for them to get to know each other a little bit better. I am sure they exchanged direct views."

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

From everything I've ever read, the generals know their job is to execute orders coming from the White House. I wonder what make General McChrystal think his job description has suddenly changed? Don't tell me he's a Rush Limbaugh fan!

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

The remarks have been seen by some in the Obama administration as a barbed reference to the slow pace of debate within the White House.

Why do I feel like I've seen this movie before? I'm hoping against hope for a different ending this time: America having the strength to walk away from something that will drain our resources with no clear goals in sight.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

But Obama is trying to figure out whether that's actually the road he wants to take:

Instead of debating whether to give McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, more troops, the discussion in the White House is now focused on whether, after eight years of war, the United States should vastly expand counterinsurgency efforts along the lines he has proposed -- which involve an intensive program to improve security and governance in key population centers -- or whether it should begin shifting its approach away from such initiatives and simply target leaders of terrorist groups who try to return to Afghanistan.

McChrystal's assessment, in the view of two senior administration officials, is just "one input" in the White House's decision-making process. The president, another senior administration official said, "has embarked on a very, very serious review of all options." The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

Obama, appearing on several Sunday-morning television news shows, left little doubt that key assumptions in the earlier White House strategy are now on the table. "The first question is: Are we doing the right thing?" the president said on CNN. "Are we pursuing the right strategy?"

"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there -- beyond what we already have," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." If an expanded counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan contributes to the goal of defeating al-Qaeda, "then we'll move forward," he said. "But, if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or . . . sending a message that America is here for the duration."