Military’s Afghanistan PR games

Gee, isn’t it funny how, right after Pres. Obama said he is currently re-examining his options in Afghanistan, a previously classified military report that recommends an increase in U.S. troop strength there pops up in the Washington Post?

The report, by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says it’s now or never – we put in a ton more troops and “nation-build” in Afghanistan, or we risk the unfathomable horror of – what? – um, the Taliban taking over the country and maybe letting al-Qaeda train there again. The Obama administration is considering a more direct strategy of leaving the country to the Taliban in order to more fully focus on al-Qaeda camps, and apparently, that’s freaking out some folks in the military, because make no mistake: the leaking of McChrystal’s report to the Post is a shot across Obama’s bow by the military. (One quick note: in the United States, remember, the military gets its marching orders from its civilian leaders, not the other way around. Maybe the ghost of Gen. Douglas McArthur could remind McChrystal of that fact.)

McChrystal’s report is devastating in its portrayal of an inept NATO effort, crippled by an impossibly corrupt Afghani government, and outmaneuvered by an increasingly sophisticated and confident Taliban.

So here we go again: We go into another poor country, screw everything up, and U.S. hawks, always eager to shed more American blood overseas, says the answer is to up the ante. The most convincing reaction to the current Afghani mess was expressed today by Eugene Robinson of the Truthdig Web site: It’s hard to read Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s assessment of the Afghanistan war without hearing one of those horror-movie voices that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere, a voice that grows louder and more insistent with every page: “Get out. Get out. Get out.”

This article appears in Sep 22-29, 2009.