What are your thoughts of Netflix's movie "War Machine"?

I worked on Gen McChrystal's PR staff for USFORA and ISAF HQ in 2009 before this incident occurred with Rolling Stone. After watching this film, it definitely had a clear agenda, touching on issues we have mulled over for almost 2 decades regarding the complexity of a counterinsurgency in a country that has such a high population of people who do not identify as Afghans and who, when we leave, are still there enduring the chaos that abounds. This film did a good job of getting me to think about our strategy in trying to "liberate" and spread democracy....what's really in the local populations' best interests, not just big businesses best interests? On the other hand, the depiction of the General was mediocre at best - yes, he did have a stringent regimen that kept him on track with handling all the responsibilities placed on a senior officer to lead both US Forces and over 42 other countries (many of which were not allowed to conduct offensive operations). Overall, I'm concerned that someone without the history and context of the geo-political environment in the Middle East may watch this and walk away thinking our General officers are just pawns put in place by our political leaders. I'd say Gen McChrystal had one of the toughest jobs in our current history and under the constraints placed upon him as a commander, he did truly have the Afghan peoples best interests in mind...it's a tough situation.

It was extremely stupid and had a seriously liberal agenda to it.

I'm O.K. with movies that point out the absurdity of war, especially if they invite a fair and thoughtful response from the audience, but the stated (voiced over) moral to this story was --unsympathetic reporters should be treated as the enemy. And that is too glib by half. So the movie ends up under-serving its military and civilian viewers alike.

The bone that the producers throw the military is to make the heroic lead a sympathetic and honest character, but they do not give him his due. He is depicted as a dispenser of slogans and a shallow intellect, and that's not the whole or the real story. So this isn't a tragedy that evokes the right cathartic response-- either for its military audience or for those it is trying to educate about war. It misses a real opportunity to approach the profundity of our national military efforts rather than opting for a farcical narrative.

War Machine tries hard to shape how society sees its military and its military leaders, but I hope the general viewer will be more thoughtful-- that they will consider that when our nation decides to send the military into harm's way, it also demands that its military leaders put on a brave face and take their best shot, no matter how impossible the mission seems. And we don't deserve to be served up as fun for the myopic and the condescending because we put our country first.