On the day that Michael Jackson's chef was appearing on television and Obama had the Cambridge 2 over to the White House for beers, a more important story was given short shrift. The Pentagon announced that a US soldier was killed in Afghanistan...where, when, doing what, name of victim, cause of death, etc, as per usual, was not mentioned. This brought the July death count in Afghanistan to 41, the highest 30 day total ever!!!
The nightly news shows each gave this 10 seconds of air time. At the pace we're going, more than 400 US soldiers in Afghanistan will die this year and untold 1000s of our personnel will be wounder. N.A.T.O. forces will suffer similar fates. Myriad numbers of Afghanis, firend and foe alike (if we can distinguish between them?) will die in a ghastly fashion. The question that needs to be asked is WHY???
Do the reasons for this carnage enunciated by President Cheney, the pretend President Bush, and the liberal hero Obama, have any credibility, even if one believes what the aforementioned threesome are saying, the true motivation for the US being in Afghanistan, is there any reasonable and objective hope that our goals (whatever they are) can be achieved in the next 100 years?
Seth Jones, a rand policy wonk, Georgetown University, War College Professor, has written the definitive book on Afghanistan entitled, In the Graveyard of Empires. Jones write in a professional manner and refrains from drawing many conclusions or indictments. However, he presents a devastating portrait of a nowhere policy which is doomed to fail.
Why has Obama allowed himself to be captured by the likes of Richard "Big-man" Holbrooke, and Generals Jones and McCrystal? Is it really possible that Obama can produce a more misguided and dillusional policy towards Afghanistan than Bush and Cheney? Why don't Barack, David, Valerie, Rahm, Hillary, Bob, Dick, Stan, etc read Jones' book or bring him into the White House for a little discussion? Are they afraid they might learn something?
