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fill me in again on why exactly the united states is party in a civil war in afghanistan?
how exactly is "the public" getting blamed for the incoherence of the situation (from a vertical military viewpoint, from a mission viewpoint that's strictly military, the scenario in afghanistan makes little sense)? the press is pooled and has been. the military has impressive abilities to package and market war. and they do it continually. this "risk adverse public" business sounds like a hangover from the conservative mythology about vietnam (and so yet another version of the old "stabbed in the back" theory dear to problematically rightwing elements in all kinds of militaries...)
if the objective is a military defeat of the taliban...wait: is that the objective? since when? this returns to the initial question.
i think it was little more than a bone thrown to the right that obama argued afghanistan was a coherent action. it's seemed pretty clear to me that his administration has no independent vision of either why the bush people got the united states involved in the first place (the urge to "do something" after 9/11/2001) nor of objectives nor of strategy. all it seems to have done is allow obama to campaign as if this absurdity of the "war on terror" made sense and to co-opt a bit of conservativespeak at the same time.
if there's no clear idea of objective then there's no winning there's no losing there's just treading water for its own sake.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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