In the debate over the future of US policy in Afghanistan, it is taken as a given by most proponents of prolonging the occupation that our presence is benefiting the Afghan people. According to this view, we are a bulwark against Taliban aggression – a prophylactic for a liberal-minded, yet vulnerable, contingent of Afghan civilians. In fact, [...]
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At long last, the Obama administration has provided a draft of its objectives with respect to the ongoing military occupation of Afghanistan, as well as a series of metrics for gauging the success in terms of meeting those aims. Unfortunately, the enunciated objectives are themselves typical of the muddled and contradictory goals, tactics and strategies associated with a mission that [...] One of the unfortunate side-effects of the overhyping of the “success” of The Surge in Iraq, and the counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine that supposedly facilitated that success, has been the belief that we can fix what ails our effort in Afghanistan by replicating that approach: applying COIN doctrine coupled with a troop surge. What gets left out of this can-do-COIN discussion [...] Marc Lynch makes a very good point: Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things). So what? Al-Qaeda (or [...] Ben Smith is impressed with the Obama administration’s relatively low-key approach to counterterrorism: One of the most striking differences between the Obama and Bush administration is the handling of domestic terror arrests. The Bush White House trumpeted every arrest and disrupted plot — in some cases, ones that were nowhere close to fruition — as a [...] This highly recommended, if heart-rending, story from the Colorado Springs Gazette tells of a group of soldiers that returned from Iraq only to fall prey to severe mental illnesses that were largely self-medicated through, and as a result exacerbated by, drug abuse. The soldiers in the applicable unit have committed serial acts of violence, including [...] I don’t envy President Obama’s predicament in Afghanistan. It’s hard to think of a region that has been less hospitable to foreign interlopers throughout ancient and modern history (earning itself the moniker "Graveyard of Empires"). And yet despite this foreboding track record, it is unclear that President Obama is willing to deviate from [...] |
Blake Hounshell (aka praktike), our co-founder and main man, is now managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. 
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