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Today's
Stories
December 3, 2009
Jeff Ballinger
Helping Dicatators Look Good
December 2, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
The Obama Puppet
Gareth Porter
The Power Struggle Behind Obama's Speech
Zoltan Grossman
Afghanistan: the Roach Motel of Empires
Mike Whitney
The Path to Full Employment: an Interview with Marshall Auerback
Ron Jacobs
The Escalation Begins: an Exchange with Anand Gopal
M. Shahid Alam
The Groveling of Pakistani Elites
D.K. Wilson
Is Tiger Woods Black Enemy Number One?
Fran Shor
Obama and the Dying Empire
Susan Galleymore
African Realities in the Wake of World AIDS Day
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Caught in the Cross Fire
Website of the Day
Rebel Without a Conscience
December 1, 2009
David Price
Human Terrain Systems, Anthropologists and the War in Afghanistan
Afshin Rattansi
The Dubai Disaster: a Familiar Fall
Carlos Benemann
Dubai FUBAR
Dean Baker
Is "Helping Homeowners" Washingtonspeak for Bailing Out the Banks?
Bouthaina Shaaban Rejecting Westocentrism
David Rosen
America's Failing Sexual Health
Susan Galleymore
Global Connections and the Arc of War
David Macaray
Labor's Beating Heart
Miriam Pemberton
Bush-Style Military Spending Not Over Yet
Farzana Versey
Condoms, Hunks and the AIDS Celebrity Circus
Website of the Day
The Story of Cap and Trade
November 30, 2009
Gary Leupp
A "Necessary War" -- for a Gas Pipeline
Mara Ahmed /
Judith Bello
Pakistan and the Global War on Terror
Mike Whitney
Crisis in Dubai
Steven Higgs
Growing Up Toxic
P. Sainath
Pay-to-Print: "News" Stories for Cash Scandal Rocks India
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Arab Women Workers Need Not Apply
Norm Kent
On the Suicide of Mike Penner: Why the Transgendered Need Civil Rights Protections
Dave Lindorff
Obama as the Manchurian Candidate
Normon Solomon
The Hollow Politics of Escalation
David Michael Green How Dare You Clean Up Our Mess?
Website of the Day
The America's Program Needs Your Help
November 27 - 29, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Auld Triangle Goes Jingle Jangle
Carl Ginsburg
Planning for Poverty?
Mike Whitney
Blame Larry Summers
Franklin Spinney
Obama as LBJ
Joshua Frank
Coal Kills
Saul Landau
The True Price of Oil
Heather Gray
Overtly Racist Regimes in the 20th Century
John Ross
The Timeline for a New Mexican Revolution Comes Due
David Macaray
Adventures in Polarization
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon:
52 Words That Shook Washington
Shamus Cooke
The Devastating Consequences of the Corporate Health Insurance Bill
David Ker Thomson
The Transformers
Martha Rosenberg
Cash for Cheesedogs? The Recession Takes a Bite Out of Meat Consumption
Ramzy Baroud
A Paradigm Shift in Singapore?
Ron Ridenour
Post-War Internment Hell for Tamils
Amanda Mueller
Saving Grace: Negotiating Abortion and the Catholic Faith
James Rothenberg
China Kowtow
Travis Kelly
Mayday, 1960: the U2 Files
Don Monkerud
Big Beer Takes Over
Ron Jacobs
Science Fiction and Politics
Charles R. Larson
The Autumn of Chinua Achebe
David Yearsley
What Father Made Us Sing Before the Turkey
Poets' Basement
Catherine Zickgraf and Mickey Z.
Website of the Weekend
Good to Be Alive
November 26, 2009
Vijay Prashad
Mumbai in the Shadow of Kashmir
Greg Moses
We Remember the Popol Vuh
Jayne Lyn Stahl
How About a War on Poverty Instead?
Jeff Cohen
Get Ready for the Obama / GOP Alliance
John Blair
The Gasification of Indiana
Ann Robertson /
Bill Leumer
A Surge in Demands on Goverment for Jobs
Farzana Versey
The American East India Company
Sam Husseini
Moral Relativism at Fort Hood: Guilt, Therapy and the System
Tom Mountain
The Truth Behind the Turkey
Website of the Day
A Thanksgiving Prayer by William S. Burroughs
November 25, 2009
Dave Lindorff
The Bush-Blair Conspiracy on Iraq
Marjorie Cohn
The Case of Lynn Stewart
Belén Fernández
An Interview with Honduran Coup General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez
Ralph Nader
Weak-Kneed in China
Rannie Amiri
The Impending Release of Gilad Shalit: What Palestinians Deserve in Return
Missy Beattie
Finish the Job?
Rob Stone, MD Health Care Delusions: Better Than Nothing?
Norm Kent
In Praise of Adam Lambert
Binoy Kampmark Handing It to France: the Sporting Trial of Thierry Henry
Ron Ridenour
International Support for Sri Lanka
Website of the Day
The Credit Card Game
November 24, 2009
Mary Lynn Cramer
Health Care Reform and the Skinning of Seniors
Dean Baker
Too Big to Kill?
The Vampire Banks Rise Again
George Ciccariello-Maher
Occupy Everything! Behind the Privatization of the UC, a Riot Squad of Police
Eric Walberg
Canada's Guantanamo
Andy Thayer
Lessons From a Lynching: the Murder of Jorge Steven Lopez-Mercado
David Macaray
The Delphi Incident: How the White-Collar Tribe Got Shafted
Laura Carlsen
The Perils of Plan Mexico
Gary Leupp
Obama as Hamlet
Adam Federman
Poisoning Dimock
William S. Lind Mission Creep: Counter-Insurgency in Salinas?
Website of the Day
Geography of the Recession
November 23, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
A Trial That Will Convict Us All
Jonathan Cook
Have Israeli Spies Infiltrated International Aiports?
Edward S. Herman / David Peterson
Vulliamy's Smears
Bouthaina Shaaban
What's New? It's Always Been Like This
Helen Redmond
Health Care's Historic Flop
Rannie Amiri
Saudi Arabia's Attack on Yemen
Dave Lindorff
Abortion and Health Care
Rev. William E. Alberts
The Self-Delusionary American Tragedy
Mike Whitney
Is American Casino the Best Picture of the Year?
Mark Weisbrot
Honduran Dictatorship is a Threat to Democracy in the Hemisphere
David Michael Green
The Placeholder Presidency of Obama
November 20-22, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
CounterPunch Diary
It's Show Trial Time!
Gareth Porter
New Light on the Qom Facility
Mike Whitney
The Great Stimulus Debate of '09: Crybabies need not apply
Fred Gardner
Mammography
Pushes Back
James J. Brittain
It's Really a War on the Poor
A War on Coca Nobody Believes
Jonathan Cook
Rabbi Followers 'Terror Cell in Parliament'
Alan Farago
Bulletin from the Dark Side: Florida's Republican Ultras
David Macaray
A Hindu Version of the UAW
Labor Strife in India
Binoy Kampmark
The Israeli Exception: Gilo and East Jerusalem
Ben Sonnenberg
Ashes and Diamonds
Retirement Norwegian Style
Ron Jacobs
Judge Roy Bean Takes Manhattan
David Yearsley
200,000 Testicles Offered Up to the Gods of Song
Brenda Norrell
A Border Runs Through Them:
The Struggles of the Tohono O'odham
Ron Ridenour
The Tamils and Equal Rights of Self Determination
November 19, 2009
Christopher Ketcham
The Dumbest Newspapers at the Center of the World
Shamus Cooke
A Fraudulent Jobs Summit
John V. Walsh
Impotent in China
Saul Landau
Dissidents Make Noise--Oops, News
Ralph Nader
Exiting Afghanistan
Nikolas Kozloff
Blackout in Brazil
Fred Gardner
Reputable MDs Buy NorCal Health Care
Charles R. Larson
Voices of the Silenced
John A. Murphy
Nader v. Dodd
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Obama's Gray World
November 18, 2009
Uri Avnery
A Religious Scoundrel
John Ross
Hot Oil!
Conn Hallinan
Strategic Towns: Why Gen. McChrystal's Plan Will Fail
Mike Whitney
Obama's China Junket
Ray McGovern
The Bogus Success of the Surge
Nelson P. Valdés
Cyber Cuba: Internet, Broadband and Foreign Policy
Ramzy Baroud
Globalization Unchecked
Ron Ridenour
Tamil Eelam: the Historic Right to Nationhood
November 17, 2009
Mike Whitney
Let's Get Fiscal
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Double Crossed:
War Vets Deported
Brian M. Downing
Do They Subscribe to GQ at the Pentagon?
Jonathan Cook
Israel's Two-Tiered Justice System
Joanne Mariner
A First Look at the Military Commisions Act
Dean Baker
Obama's Nuclear Option on the Yuan
Martha Rosenberg
Pig Hell at Wal-Mart Supplier
Danny Weil
Fear in Nicaragua
David Macaray
Retail Sales as Combat
Laura Flanders
Buried Bonanza for Over-Builders
Walter Brasch
Rush to Judgment on Terror Trials
November 16, 2009
Alan Nasser
Obama's Flawed Case Against Single Payer
Jonathan Cook
Campus Watch Copy Cats
Mark Weisbrot
Obama, China and the Dollar
Carol Miller
We Need Health Care, Not Insurance
Gary Leupp
The Andolan in Kathmandu and the Revolution to Follow
Harry Clark
Justice Goldstone at Brandeis
Ray McGovern
Shining a Light on the Roots of Terrorism
Norman Solomon
California Democrats Urge Obama to Leave Afghanistan
Ron Ridenour
Genocide in Sri Lanka
Norm Kent
Doctors Light Up
Brenda Norrell
Torture Resisters Arrested at Fort Huachuca
November 13-15, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
A Man in a Hundred
Patrick Cockburn
Meet Our Afghan Ally: Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys
Tariq Ali
Short Cuts in Afghanistan
Douglas Lummis
Obama, Hatoyama and Okinawa
Vijay Prashad
Can the Major Speak?
Carl Ginsburg
Cornering the Market on Ambition
Manuel García, Jr.
The Purpose is Pork
Rannie Amiri
The Disastrous Presidency of Mahmoud Abbas
Mary Lynn Cramer
Death By Denial: the Militarization of Mental Health
Fred Gardner
Pot Doc Down
Dave Lindorff
Health Care Reform: DOA
Robert Jensen
How I Stopped Hating Thanksgiving and Learned to be Afraid
David Macaray
Wal-Mart Death Stampede Revisited
Corporate Crime Reporter
Exposing Timberland: Nike Foe Jeff Ballinger Zeros in on a New Target
Ron Jacobs
No More Star Spangled Eyes
David Model
NATO's Chimerical Enemy in Afghanistan
John V. Walsh
Godless China: What Obama Will Find
Jon Mitchell
Beggars' Belief
Stuart Easterling
Blaming the Narcos in Mexico
Dan Bacher
Big Oil Takes Over Marine "Protection" in California
Franklin Lamb
Lebanese Students Advise Obama on How to Get It Right
Farzana Versey
Moderns, Models and Martyrs
Charles R. Larson
War, Peace and Paramilitaries in Colombia
Saul Landau
The Coen Bros. Brutalize Job
David Yearsley
When the Cirque Meets the Beatles
Lorenzo Wolff
At the Side of the Frontman
Poets' Basement
Blaine, Rivas and Cox
November 12, 2009
Robert Weissman
Maniacal Deregulation
Franklin Spinney
The Afghan War Question
Nadia Hijab
After Fort Hood
Afshin Rattansi
Night Vision: Why US Sanctions on Syria Will Kill American Soldiers
Paul Craig Roberts
America's Dismal Future
Ralph Nader
Failing the People on Health Care
Belén Fernández
Tourists of the Honduran Counter-Revolution
Allan J. Lichtman
A National Peacemaker's Day
Dave Lindorff
President Peacenik's War
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Headline of the Year
November 11, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
The Crafting of a Loophole
Mike Whitney
A Small "d" Depression
Rev. Jesse Jackson
Where's the Jobs Stimulus?
Jeff Nygaard
Iranian Irrationality? Maybe Not
Stewart J. Lawrence
Honduran Regime Reneges on Political Deal
James Ridgeway
The End of the Little Red Cars: Memories of East Berlin
Eamonn McCann
Blood on Their Hands
Michael Ortiz Hill
Unbecoming War and Terrorism
Shepherd Bliss
From Oklahoma City to Fort Hood
Walter Brasch
"This is Jenna Bush Reporting ... "
November 10, 2009
Ellen Cantarow
Heroism in a Vanishing Landscape
Dean Baker
How to Raise $140 Billion a Year From Wall Street Banks
Rose Ann DeMoro
The Truth About the House Health Care Bill
Ramzy Baroud
Inch by Inch, House by House:
How Israel Won the Settlement Battle...Again
Peter Lee
The Dalai Lama Sticks His Thumb in the Dragon's Eye
Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Workers
Roberto Rodriguez
Running Past PTSD (Or My Susto Profundo)
Winslow T. Wheeler
The Self-Dismembering F-35
Alan Farago
The Rising Tide
Joseph Grosso
The Legacy of Albert Parsons
November 9, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Leave Afghanistan to the Afghans
Linn Washington
Fox Finds a New Black Boogeyman
Carl Ginsburg
To be Young and Unemployed Forever
Jeff Leys
War Funding, 2010
John A. Murphy
Can Lieberman Save Single Payer? Why Progressives Should Back a Filibuster
John Halle
Bard and the Lobby:
Final Thoughts on the Kovel Affair
Bouthaina Shaaban
Clinton Dances With Netanyahu
James Ridgeway
Heath Care: Winning a Battle, Losing the War
Dave Lindorff
The Kafka Economy
David Macaray
The Philadelphia Transit Strike
Stephen Fleischman
The Tea Party System
Website of the Day
Cap-and-Trade: The Huge Mistake
November 6-8, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Too Fat to Fight
Mark Grueter
Inside the American University of Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
The Evil Empire
Patrick Cockburn
Friendly Fire
Gareth Porter
Karzai's Cabinet of Warlords
Mike Whitney
The Battle of Seattle, 10 Years Later
James Bovard
How the Media Enables Government Lies
Dean Baker
Don't Touch the Banks!
Robert Lawless
Empires and the Sullying of Anthropology
Saul Landau
Afghanistan:
a War Without Logic
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Black Ops and Fort Hood
Stephanie Westbrook
My Memories of Fort Hood
M. Shahid Alam
How Eurocentric Are You?
Marc Levy
Walking With Mr. Muhammad
Franklin Lamb
Obama's Mid-East Mess
Ron Jacobs
A New Map of Hell
David Ker Thomson
Afternoon With Tulip
John V. Whitbeck
Moment of Truth
Julien Mercille
Drugs and Afghanistan: the UN's Misleading Report
Rannie Amiri
Egypt's Next Unelected President?
John Ross
Legalize It!
David Michael Green
Can You Hear Us Now?
Carl Finamore
Strike One for Hotels in San Francisco
Farzana Versey
The Farce of Fatwas and Political Expediency
Missy Comley Beattie
No to Single Payer, Yes to Prayer?
Charles R. Larson
Business as Usual in India
David Yearsley
Anna Magdalena, Music and the Art of Dying
Kim Nicolini
"Paranormal Activity:"
a DIY Horror Film
Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Devreaux Baker
November 5, 2009
Pam Martens
The Fire Sale of America
Vijay Prashad
The Great Heretic
Brian Gallagher
The Soldiers From Standard Oil: Harvard, ROTC and American Foreign Policy
Norman Solomon
The Next Phase in Health Care Apartheid
Nadia Hijab
The Battle for Palestinian Representation
Joseph Shansky
And the Winner in Honduras is ... the United States?
Andy Thayer
Questions and Answers From Maine
Tracy Rosenberg
Pacifica and the Barbarians Who Pay the Bills
Website of the Day
All Folked Up
November 4, 2009
Stan Cox
The Inflated Promise of Natural Gas
Andy Worthington From Gitmo to Palau: Who are the Uighurs?
Robert Weissman
The Medicare-for-All Moment
Susan Galleymore
Of Veterans and Volunteers
Ralph Nader
Hoh's Afghanistan Warning
Michael Leonardi
Italy's Secret Ships of Poison
Bitta Mistofi
Death to No One: Isolating and Taunting Iran Will Only Empower the Regime
Robert Bryce
From Lahore to Copenhagen
Martha Rosenberg
Is Your Doctor's Continuing Ed Funded by Drug Makers?
Dave Lindorff
Democrats Crash and Burn
Website of the Day
Single-Payer Backtrackers
November 3, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
The Delegitimization of Karzai
Mike Whitney
Why the Crisis Isn't Going Away
Franklin C. Spinney
Katrina and the Paralysis of Fear
Laura Carlsen
The Little Coup That Couldn't
Serge Halimi
Don't Blame the Internet
John Stanton
Social Decay in America
Sophia Weeks
A Guatemalan Lament
Dave Lindorff
Country Joe, Kenny Rogers and Obama
November 2, 2009
Steven Higgs
Autism Spikes, Toxins Suspected
Ishmael Reed
White in America: Behind the Scenes at CNN
David Macaray
UAW Members Vote Down Ford; and the Media Attacked the Union
Bouthaina Shaaban
Settler Colonialism: Return to the Middle Ages
David Michael Green
Coming to Get You
David Swanson
The Two Percent Robustness
Ellen Brown
Cutting Wall Street Out
Adam Federman
Trading the Watershed to Trash the Catskills
James McEnteer
Doppleganger Politics:
Star Wars, Clone Wars
Stephen Fleischman
Foot in the Door: Capitalism and Health Care
Website of the Day
Secret California Park Giveaway
October 30 - Nov. 1, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
The Long Gaze of the State
Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Facing Down the Machine: Mike Roselle Draws a Line
Carl Ginsburg
Living in the Shadow of Yankee Stadium
Mike Whitney
Obama Goes Wobbly Over More Stimulus
Joe Bageant
The Iron Cheer of Empire
Gareth Porter
Security By Warlords: the CIA's Afghan Payroll
Saul Landau
The Cuban Embargo
Anthony DiMaggio
Conspiracy, Inc.: Wild Tales From the Reactionary Right
Dave Lindorff
Happy Talk Amid the Wreckage: Stocks Up, Jobs Down
Rannie Amiri
The Spooks of Beirut
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Afghan Travelogue
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Who Will Reform the Health Care Reform?
Rev. William E. Alberts
God's Favorite Team (and Nation and Religion)
Alvaro Huerta
The Abominable Mr. Dobbs
Martha Rosenberg
Marketing Drugs to Psychoneurotics
Binoy Kampmark
Don't Give Us Your Wretched: Refugee Policy in OZ
Norm Kent
Not Just Zig-Zag Any More: Medical Marijuana Goes Mainstream
Charles R. Larson Roth's "The Humbling:" Nothing Like a Novel From an Old Pro
Ron Jacobs
One Man's Truth, Another Man's Lies
David Yearsley
Not Loud Enough by Half
Lorenzo Wolff
The Vulnerability of Lauryn Hill
Kim Nicolini
"Big Fan:"
Football, Class and Sexuality in America
Poets' Basement
Davies, Heyen and Orloski
Website of the Weekend
Coal Country Music
October 29, 2009
Michael Neumann
Criticism of Israel: a Wonderful Hiding Place
Mike Whitney
Housing Rebound? Not So Fast
Gary Leupp
Matthew Hoh Speaks Truth to Power
Conn Hallinan
Roman Roads and Modern Emperors
Marshall Auerback
Obama's Bogus Populism: Pay Curbs and Bank Loans
Laura Flanders
Palin's Pet Doug Hoffman Has Taliban Ties
Eamonn McCann
The War Criminal Vote: Blair or Karadzic for EU President?
David Macaray
Strange Invaders:
Can Ignorance and Arrogance Win Hearts and Minds?
Mark Weisbrot
When Small Countries Lead the Way
Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Complicity in Torture Challenged
Christopher Brauchli
Will the Pope Bring the Taliban Into His Flock?
Website of the Day
The USS Liberty Affair and the Problem of Truth in History
October 28, 2009
Moshe Adler
How to Reduce Unemployment, Rebuild the Middle Class and Free Ourselves From Wall Street
Dave Lindorff
America's Drug Crisis: Brought to You by the CIA
Frank Joseph Smecker
Agaisnt Prometheus: an Interview with Derrick Jensen on Science and Technology
Alexandra Early
What a "Jobless" Recovery Means for Young Workers
M. Shahid Alam
Israeli Exceptionalism
Vijay Prashad
Sahelian Blowback:
What's Happening in Mali?
John Ross
Three Years Later, Brad Will is Still Dead
Franklin Lamb
A
Rare Victory for Lebanon's Palestinians
Gregory Travis
The Dismal Science: Elinor Ostrom's Nobel
Susan Galleymore
Peace Cycle to Palestine
Website of the Day
Newspaper Decline, a Graphic Display
October 27, 2009
Mike Whitney
Black Tuesday and How We Got Out of It
Patrick Cockburn
Bombs Will Go Off in Baghdad, Whether the US is There or Not
Stewart J. Lawrence
Honduran Coup Myths Dispelled
Alan Farago
Power Plays in Florida: Rate Increases, Nukes and Deception
Ralph Nader
Obama: Form Letters and Business as Usual
Dave Lindorff
Pentagon Dirty Bombers: DU in America
Bouthaina Shaaban
The Danger of Towing the Line Behind Israel
Brian M. Downing Elections in Afghanistan, the Second Time Around
Iain Boal
How You Can Save Pacifica
Carl Finamore
Hotel Workers and the Law of Momentum
Jayne Lyn Stahl
Here Comes That Third Party: Palin and the Constitutionalists
Website of the Day
How Bank of America Charges for Perfect Credit
October 26, 2009
Bill Quigley /
Deborah Popowski
When Gitmo and Abu Ghraib Come Home
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Next Crisis?
Uri Avnery
A Tsunami Called Goldstone
Mike Whitney
Will the Dollar Remain the World's Reserve Currency in Five Years?
Michael Snedeker
The Execution of Cameron Willingham
Shamus Cooke
Obama's Dirty War on Immigrants
David Michael Green
Paranoia for Breakfast
Martha Rosenberg
Gagging Michael Pollan
Patrick Bond
Gridlock on the Way to Copenhagen
Binoy Kampmark
Heading for the Tiber
Website of the Day
Goldman Sachs Abandons Kittens
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December 3, 2009
Asking For It
What are We Fighting for in Afghanistan?
By PAUL FITZGERALD and ELIZABETH GOULD
It was the opportunity for the president of the United States to deliver his most important address yet. America was entering a new era after failing to defeat an implacable foe in a far off and forbidding land. His speech was filled with Sturm und Drang, delivered to the finest young men and women the country had to offer and the highest defense and intelligence officials in the land at the world’s most prestigious military academy. It should have been a sacred moment in American history.
For months the world had waited with great anticipation for the president to weigh in on America’s involvement in Afghanistan amidst a bitter debate over the respective consequences of investing more troops and further billions, and the very likely possibility that the United States could lose the war and be subjected to more merciless attacks by Al Qaeda. A varied mix of solutions were offered up, which included negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, and, ultimately, withdrawing current troops.
Had the president leveled with the American people and talked about ethnic cleansing of Pashtun and Baluch tribal areas by Predator Drones, of  Blackwater crimes and targeted assassinations, some might have breathed a sigh of relief. Instead the president weighed in with a well worn mantra by offering as his primary justification for sending more troops that “We did not ask for this fight.”
We did not ask for this fight?
For 60 years the United States played both Pakistan and Afghanistan against each other in a Manichean, dualist game of superpower politics with little regard for the consequences. But like the Soviet Union before it, the cold war assumptions of military power that the United States carried with it into Afghanistan have been rendered useless by the ethnic, political and military complexities of the Afghan/Pakistan region.
Before the United States can hope to win anything in Afghanistan it has to decide what it is fighting for. Is it oil, geostrategic positioning, against terror or just to save face. In the last few years U.S. strategy has broken down to a confused mix, dominated by those wishing to withdraw troops and limit the American commitment to containing Al Qaeda and those favoring a robust counterinsurgency campaign requiring a permanent political and military commitment that would last for decades.
General Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s new commander in Afghanistan, is well aware that nothing can be accomplished without a change in the psychology of the American approach, stating in his August 30 report, “Many describe the conflict in Afghanistan as a war of ideas,.. However, this is a ‘deeds-based’ information environment where perceptions derive from actions, such as how we interact with the population and how quickly things move. The key to changing perceptions lies in changing the underlying truths.”
McChrystal realizes that “changing the underlying truths” requires a change in the operational culture to “interact more closely with the population, and focus on operations that bring stability, while shielding them from insurgent violence, corruption, and coercion.”
But whether the very nature of America’s military/industrial/media/academic complex can be moved off its primary directive in order to accommodate McChrystal’s request, remains highly doubtful. The decentralized nature of the opposition in Afghanistan and Pakistan defies the very culture of the Pentagon’s thinking. Like Vietnam, a decentralized enemy is anathema to the rigid, high technology and high-cost Command, Control and Communications approach developed throughout the cold war to decapitate the centralized Soviet bureaucracy. But the Pentagon continues to insist on applying its expensive tools, regardless of its persistent failure to eliminate, let alone define its enemy.
General McChrystal will get 30,000 troops and 18 months to prove his counterinsurgency plan can work. The cost to the United States will be immense, especially to an economy already bled dry by 60 years of cold war and its attendant thinking. If it can establish security for both the Afghan and Pakistani people, somehow spare innocent civilians and roll back extremist terror, it might work. If it doesn’t, no troop escalation or elaborate counterinsurgency doctrine can save Washington’s political class from the fight it went out of its way to ask for.
Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould are authors of "Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story," published by City Lights. They can be reached at www.invisiblehistory.com |
