Afghan Sitrep: A Grunt from the Front Sounds Off
Posted by Chuck Spinney
TIME
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 4:01 am
(La Ciotat, France) -- Inside Versailles on the Potomac, pressure is building on President Obama to reduce his promised withdrawal of combat troops in Afghanistan to a cosmetic level, and perhaps more to the point, to protect the defense budget from efforts to reduce the deficit. The two -- i.e., perpetual war and the defense budget -- are joined at the hip (as I explained here). The Pentagon's mouthpieces in thinktanks are therefore dutifully filling the op-ed pages with fact-free arguments to justify continuing the ten year war unabated.
Attached below is a more informed, less self-interested view. It is from an email written by an active duty colonel who travels all over Afghanistan. For obvious reasons, he must remain anonymous, but it came to me from a trusted source. This colonel, unlike many of his peers, actually goes on foot patrols with troops to see things for himself. His message, which is only a few days old, is bad Ju Ju, I am afraid.
(snip)
Email to Col XXX
TIME
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 4:01 am
(La Ciotat, France) -- Inside Versailles on the Potomac, pressure is building on President Obama to reduce his promised withdrawal of combat troops in Afghanistan to a cosmetic level, and perhaps more to the point, to protect the defense budget from efforts to reduce the deficit. The two -- i.e., perpetual war and the defense budget -- are joined at the hip (as I explained here). The Pentagon's mouthpieces in thinktanks are therefore dutifully filling the op-ed pages with fact-free arguments to justify continuing the ten year war unabated.
Attached below is a more informed, less self-interested view. It is from an email written by an active duty colonel who travels all over Afghanistan. For obvious reasons, he must remain anonymous, but it came to me from a trusted source. This colonel, unlike many of his peers, actually goes on foot patrols with troops to see things for himself. His message, which is only a few days old, is bad Ju Ju, I am afraid.
(snip)
Email to Col XXX
The mendacity is getting so egregious that I am fast losing the ability to remain quiet; these yarns of "significant progress" are being covered up by the blood and limbs of hundreds - HUNDREDS - of American uniformed service members each and every month, and you know that the rest of this summer is going to see the peak of that bloodshed.(Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/06/08/afghan-sitrep-a-grunt-from-the-front-sounds-off/)
The article by Michael O'Hanlon last week (i.e. Success worth paying for in Afghanistan) and the one in today's WSJ by Kagan and Kagan (i.e., We Have the Momentum in Afghanistan) made me sick to my stomach - especially the latter. Have you seen it yet? It is the most breathless piece of yellow journalism I've seen in the entire OIF-OEF generation.
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