the situation in afghanistan seems to me in part a result of policy inertia--just as there was no clear reason to involve the military there and there's been no clear strategy to orient what's happened thus far, there's also no reason to pull out.
and in part a result of the political turd handed the united states by the bush administration. one enabling condition of the debacle that was the bush period was an orchestrated right shift in public discourse. obama as a campaigner seemed to me to be running against the iraq fiasco--but there was likely (i think) a concern that emphasizing that too much would alienate the center, which was in play thanks to the giant steaming turd that was the bush administration. so afghanistan was useful. it also allows for nothing to be done to dismantle the vast "security" public/private sector thats metastasized since 9/11/2001 and nothing to be done to roll back the prerogatives claimed by the bush people for the state (the fbi announced a plan to extend email surveillance without a warrant last week)
so much for all that conservo-nonsense about obama being a leftist.
speaking of that nonsense, it appears that the machinery of war marketing is struggling to get ahead of this story from wikileaks, but with the help of a complaint press is managing it. the red herrings abound:
WikiLeaks 'has blood on its hands' over Afghan war logs, claim US officials | World news | The Guardian
the investigation widens to include people nearby:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/wo...gewanted=print
and there's a few stories on the front page of the ny times like this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/wo...ef=global-home
all of which go to show you the outlines of a media strategy that's being implemented to manage the leak situation. divert attention onto the leak as Crime. restate the vague orientations that guide the afghanistan involvement to begin with. use anything bad that happens in afghanistan to emphasize how bad the leaks as as leak, as action. demonize wikileaks.