Afghan Town McChrystal Cited As Big Success Story Is Still Struggling

Stars and Stripes:

Within hours of President Barack Obama's announcement of a new surge of 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, the man charged with winning the war stood before reporters in Kabul and offered what he said was a shining example of how the new counterinsurgency strategy can succeed: the Baraki Barak district of embattled Logar province.

Read the whole story: Stars and Stripes

Comments

[KIVPossum]

10:29 AM on 12/03/2009

Big success story there...Pay people to cooperate with us. In a way this might be a better strategy...pull the troops out and give every adult 5000$ a year, every warlord 10,000$ and every religious leader 25000$. Proven Taliban leaders get even more.

Gotta be cheaper that what we're doing, with less exposure to our troops. They can be Santa and pass out money.

[billw8017]

10:22 AM on 12/03/2009

The "Follies" are alive and well in Afghanistan.

I like the Stars and Stripes. I read a column by Arianna Huffington in one issue out of the Mideast. Woefully to say, it was counter balanced by a column by Coulter.

[Durango]

12:50 AM on 12/03/2009

This is almost the sole reporting I have seen of any place outside of Kabul, Kandahar or Helmand Province.

What is happening in Herat? Mazr e Shariff? Or Bamiyan?

Afghanistan is a huge diverse country with many different cultures and even languages.

Yet the reporting is generally simplistic and shallow.

[ChelseaC]

12:21 AM on 12/03/2009

Rachel Maddow:
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/12/02

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/12/02-0

Here We Go Again:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/02-11

[Ergon]

09:01 PM on 12/02/2009

Hah! This town is on the main supply route from Pakistan and they keep it 'pacified' only with a massive infusion of bribes.

[marymansour]

07:41 PM on 12/02/2009

Even the Persians gave up on Afghanistan.

[RobBre]

10:36 PM on 12/02/2009

Afghanistan was a peaceful place in the 1970's when backpacker travellers went to visit and maybe even smoke some hashish.

[Durango]

12:51 AM on 12/03/2009

Parts of Afghanistan were in the Persian empire for centuries.

[aflyinyoursoup]

07:02 PM on 12/02/2009

McChrystal's strategy is simple....Get a Promotion to fatten his retirement annuity and then go to work as a lobbyist for a Defense Contractor and make more millions shoving bloated or unnecessary military contracts down the American Tax-Payer's throats. And, of course, the fact that more American men and women will be killed in the process doesn't phase the d-bag in the least.
He may even enjoy some sort of 'under the table' windfall from the OIL Industry, since they will benefit immensely by their planed trans-Afghan pipeline; One of the major reasons this war!

[Durango]

12:55 AM on 12/03/2009

And US 'Grant was only in it for his fathers tannery business. And Sherman to help his brother political career or his step fathers land interests.

Nice that you have no grasp of complexity and want to simplify everything to a caricature.

BTW the pipeline conspiracy theory is a very unfunny joke.

A joke on you and the other believers out there.