Gotta lead with the good stuff. Crank this one to 11.

In re: McCrystal. A couple of things that should pop right out as the nut graphs of this whole affair but that (typically) have been totally buried by the media in the whole scandaliciousness frenzy surrounding the Rolling Stone article by , Michael Hastings. One, Rolling Stone still does some awesome journalism. Two, mainstream media=total failure.

The sense of wonderment that pervaded on most of the TV puditocracy, e.g. “How is this guy ever going to get access again?”

Access isn’t the point because he’s now got the story of his life. Fuck access. See John Stewart.

And it was an outstanding bit of journalism. The “scandalous” stuff was really in the first 500 words. The rest of the article is a very illuminating piece on Gen. McCrystal — a soldier’s soldier if ever there was one — and our strategy in Afghanistan. For those of you who can’t be arsed to read 1,200 words of the most important journalism of 2010 here are the nut graphs of the Hasting’s piece:

The rules handed out here are not what McChrystal intended – they’ve been distorted as they passed through the chain of command – but knowing that does nothing to lessen the anger of troops on the ground. “Fuck, when I came over here and heard that McChrystal was in charge, I thought we would get our fucking gun on,” says Hicks, who has served three tours of combat. “I get COIN. I get all that. McChrystal comes here, explains it, it makes sense. But then he goes away on his bird, and by the time his directives get passed down to us through Big Army, they’re all fucked up – either because somebody is trying to cover their ass, or because they just don’t understand it themselves. But we’re fucking losing this thing.”

Later on:

When it comes to Afghanistan, history is not on McChrystal’s side. The only foreign invader to have any success here was Genghis Khan – and he wasn’t hampered by things like human rights, economic development and press scrutiny. The COIN doctrine, bizarrely, draws inspiration from some of the biggest Western military embarrassments in recent memory: France’s nasty war in Algeria (lost in 1962) and the American misadventure in Vietnam (lost in 1975). McChrystal, like other advocates of COIN, readily acknowledges that counterinsurgency campaigns are inherently messy, expensive and easy to lose. “Even Afghans are confused by Afghanistan,” he says. But even if he somehow manages to succeed, after years of bloody fighting with Afghan kids who pose no threat to the U.S. homeland, the war will do little to shut down Al Qaeda, which has shifted its operations to Pakistan. Dispatching 150,000 troops to build new schools, roads, mosques and water-treatment facilities around Kandahar is like trying to stop the drug war in Mexico by occupying Arkansas and building Baptist churches in Little Rock. “It’s all very cynical, politically,” says Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer who has extensive experience in the region. “Afghanistan is not in our vital interest – there’s nothing for us there.”

Whatever the nature of the new plan, the delay underscores the fundamental flaws of counterinsurgency. After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there. Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. “Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem,” says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. “A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we’re picking winners and losers” – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population. So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word “victory” when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible. Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge.

Of course, Stanley McChrystal is not in charge any more is he? And what we are not getting right now is any kind of rational debate on exactly what the fuck we are planning on with regards to an exit strategy for a war that has drug on for one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-NINE years and shows no sign of being over inside of a decade.

It seems to me that in our hate and fear of Al Quaida is holding hands with with a whole series of national neuroses that we can bundle up under the label, Vietnam Syndrome, e.g. support the troops at all costs, keep the faith, the illusion that winning only requires enough will power and the right strategy, etc. ( Read the article for why all of this is relevant in regard to Gen. McCrystal in particular but for the current generation of military upper brass in general.)

Looking at Vietn… sorry, Afghanistan through those lenses we have totally overlooked the really important thing about war in general; it is supposed to further the national interest.

A U.S. Marine, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)

Outside of finding and killing some murderous douchebags hiding out (mostly in Pakistan) in caves and mud huts — a job that can be done by a few handfuls of drones, spies and special operators — where is the national interest in spending hundreds (if not thousands) of billions of dollars and thousands of lives here?

Hundreds of billions of dollars. Do you have any idea what we could have done with that (borrowed) money? For the war in Afghanistan we could have built a coast-to-coast high speed railway. We could have sent every graduating senior in America to four years of college for the past nine years. We could have had free freakin’ healthcare for everyone.

Tags: Afghanistan, Football, Media, Politics

This entry was posted on June 24, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Football, Foreign Policy, Media, Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.