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July 26, 2010 06:30 PM UTC

Afghanistan - It's deja vu all over again

  • 1 Comments
  • by: allyncooper

UPDATE: Col. Dave Lapan, Defense Dept. spokeman, said “Just because they are posted on the Internet, doesn’t make them unclassified”. Guess that makes them public unclassified documents.

“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the Government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

Justice Hugo L. Black – concurring opinion denying the government’s request for for a permanent injunction against the New York Times for the publication of The Pentagon Papers.

“Armed peasants are no match against the mightiest of armies”

Mao Zedong

Yesterday a website called WikiLeaks published a six year archive of classified military documents which detail a “boots on the ground” account of how the war in Afghanistan is going. And by all interpretations, the war is not going well.

The documents establish how optimistic public pronouncements about the conduct of the war in many cases bear little reality to the actual situation. One of age might be reminded of the daily press briefings held in Saigon during the Vietnam war by the US military command which became known as the “Five O’clock Follies”.

For a synopsis of these documents and other links about the war effort click here to the New York Times page, one of the news organizations given access to the documents, just as the New York Times was given the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg 39 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07…

Last week Congress appropriated another $60 billion to the war efforts in both Iran and Afghanistan. This brings the total spent on these wars to well over one trillion dollars, at a time of the worst economic retraction in this country since the Great Depression and trillion dollar a year deficits. And last month, the general in charge of the war was replaced with another after revelations of discord between civilian and military leaders became public.

Despite the decision last December by the Obama administration to “up the ante” in Afghanistan and commit upwards of 100,000 American troops, the objectives of that decision remain murky at best and unrealistic and unobtainable at worst. The RNC Chair Micheal Steele was certainly disingenuous when he stated that Obama started this war, but his assertion that the war was “unwinnable” was not. Barack Obama did not start this war, but he did adopt it last December with his decision to stay in and escalate the war with additional troops and other resources. And with that decision, this is now Mr. Obama’s war.  

That decision was flawed, because the fact is there is no military solution to Afghanistan, not now, and not in the past 30 years of continuous war in this unfortunate country. When that decision was made, Congressman Jared Polis (who has had his “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan) was the only member of the Colorado Congressional delegation to come out against the escalation stating that Afghanistan can only be resolved politically, and we needed to begin an orderly withdrawal of our troops instead of deploying more.

I agreed with Rep. Polis and other critics of the war, and I wrote a diary on Pols two months before the decision on the troop buildup arguing that the Afghanistan dilemma cannot and never will be solved militarily.

“Is It Time for Obama to Blink?”  http://coloradopols.com/diary/…

As Afghanistan now becomes the longest war in American history, with little to show for it as it continues to consume out national treasure and sacrifices the lives of our best and brightest, we need to be asking the hard questions about this war and find the courage to face the truth.

I have visited the Vietnam Memorial Wall several times and prayed for those whose names are carved into that Wall, including that of a cousin. We owe it to our men and women in Afghanistan to find the same courage to face the truth about this war that they display everyday fighting it. To do no less dishonors their service to our country.

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One thought on “Afghanistan – It’s deja vu all over again”

  1. .

    Since the advent of this war in Afghanistan, every “General Staff” now has an Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Communications.

    In FY 2011, expenditures for Strategic Communication at all levels exceeds $8 Billion.  

    What is “Strategic Communications ?”

    Remember, Congress has made it illegal for Executive Departments and Agencies to lobby Congress, or to propagandize the American public. What is still permitted is propagandizing foreign publics, in Europe, Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Can the military help it if they lie to the Afghan press, and then US media outlets pick that propaganda up and feed it to the domestic audience ?  

    Strategic Communications is one aspect of “Information Warfare,” and consists of those actions taken to ensure political support back home for military operations, both ongoing and future.  

    In this Internet age, when the US military lies to the Afghan Press, they are lying to you and me.  Sure, they have no control over that.  Sure.  

    .

    And it’s just not accurate to say that Congressman Polis has had his “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan.  

    He was in an insulated, isolated petri dish echo chamber miles (and centuries) distant from the Afghanistan patrolled by US soldiers.  

    Jared has no better understanding of the Afghan war than Doug Lamborn, based on his hermetically sealed visit.  Doug has traveled to the patch of USA transplanted to Bagram AB, just like Jared.  Nothing is learned on such a trip; preconceived notions are reinforced.  

    Jared’s more nuanced grasp of the situation is based not on attending a dog-and-pony show at particular grid coordinates; it’s based on reading the international press.  

    .

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