Afghanistan: Revenge Of The Surge

We got through Christmas without having NORAD accidentally blow Santa out of the sky, but don't let your guard down yet. While visions of sugarplums danced in our heads, the Pentagon flew another escalation strategy under the radar. On the eve of Christmas Eve, Dexter Filkins of the New York Times reported "Taking a page from the successful experiment in Iraq, American commanders and Afghan leaders are preparing to arm local militias to help in the fight against a resurgent Taliban."

Merry Christmas, fellow citizens. Odds are now almost certain that your country will be in a state of war throughout your lifetimes, and possibly throughout your children's lifetimes as well.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Y2KCockroach]

What is instructive is to read the posts on the "discussion board" that immediately follows Huber's article (on "Military.com"). The posters are for the most part military members, family, or supporters, and most every one of them has declared the "surge" to be a resounding success (based upon the linear analysis that more soldiers coincided with less violence). That simplistic analysis is not incorrect, however, Huber's main point is that the success of the "surge" was based primarily in the arming and bribing of our erstwhile Sunni opponents (it is what the Pentagon now proposes to do with the Pashtun war-lords in Afghanistan), and that while arming/bribing your opponent works as long as you continue to arm/bribe your opponent, things can change quickly once you turn off the "spigot" (note that the Taliban coalesced in order to fight the Mujaheddin, whom we had been arming/bribing for years, and then abandoned). And that is the "revenge of the surge": we cannot afford to do it forever (paying off bankers and auto-makers now takes precedence over paying off Sunni and Pashtun war-lords). What do we do then, when the Chinese credit card that we have been using to arm/bribe everybody maxes out?

[wadenelson1]

Did we learn nothing from the Soviet Union's failed effort to dominate this country?

[thepoliticalcat]

Apparently not.