[credit Jim Morin, Miami Herald]
It is a lot easier to blow people away than convince them of the righteousness of your military occupation of their country. Perhaps that is why US troops are allegedly asking their new commander for a loosening of the rules of engagement.Clearly, the Obama team has run out of ideas. The 'surge' in Iraq, which many observers believe Forty-four is emulating in Afghanistan, has produced a domestic political stalemate that endangers that nation's fragile peace and the American military withdrawal. After doing his best Harry Truman imitation by sacking General McChrystal, Obama's "go to guy", General David Petraeus, is still faced with the inconvenient truth that his civilian boss is propping up a quisling government so corrupted that it interferes with military operations. The Kandahar push had to be postponed because local officials, headed by President Karsai's Taliban friendly brother, could not be brought on board. Karsai is already planning for his survival after the US military leaves by opening negotiations with the Taliban.
The reality on the ground in Afghanistan makes our military leaders sound like college sophomores at a football rally. After taking over from McCrystal, Petraeus talked about "winning" the war there. Hopefully this rhetoric was for grunt consumption only. The only thing the contesting ethnic factions in Afghanistan can agree on is the removal of western troops. As the General would readily admit, winning hearts and minds in a counterinsurgency is more than half the battle. Nine years on, that battle we have clearly lost. It is one we lost in Vietnam too. Destroying Vietnamese villages in order to save them from communism did not win that conflict, nor will killing more Afghanis win this one. If the original rational for this war was to enter the country, destroy Al Qaeda and it's leaders, and then exit, the rationale has been lost amongst the hubris of western militarism. The $33 billion Congress recently approved for the Afghan war is a waste, pure and simple, and better spent giving Americans another six months of unemployment benefits.