This past week I took a break from Return Good for Evil to work on a related effort: Get Afghanistan Right Week.
A group of bloggers, writers and activists today launched “Get Afghanistan Right Week,” the start of an ongoing campaign to oppose military escalation in Afghanistan. From January 12-18, they will post stories and relevant materials to publicize growing opposition to the idea that more troops will bring stability to Afghanistan or secure the United States. Participants argue that Afghanistan has become an un-winnable, deepening quagmire, and that escalation will drain resources needed for recovery efforts at home. The group will post their work on various high-traffic websites and aggregate their work on a new website, GetAfghanistanRight.com.
If you’re interested, below are the three long posts I authored at Daily Kos for the week. I pointed out the inconsistencies and deadly gambles inherent in a troop increase for our efforts in Afghanistan from three angles: the number of troops “needed,” the lack of a legitimate government to work with, and the volatile effects of arming local militias in tandem with a troop increase.
The Myth of an Afghan Counterinsurgency Strategy
- Part I: Troop Requirements for Counterinsurgency
- Part II: Legitimate Host Government?
- Part III: Arming Local Militias
I’d written other pieces for this effort before we launched the week of coordinated blogging. Here are the links for those as well.
- Al Qaida Wants Us to Escalate in Afghanistan
- We Cannot Afford to Escalate in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan is Not Iraq…Except When It Is
- The Suffocated Thousands
- Afghanistan War: Unfunded and a Liability
[...] U.S. Army, United for Peace and Justice, Wallis by dcrowe I’ve written quite a bit about the challenges inherent in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. In this series of posts, I want to go further in this post and argue that the U.S. should abandon [...]
[...] written quite a bit about the challenges inherent in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. In this series of posts, I want to go further and argue that the U.S. should abandon the paradigm [...]
[...] written quite a bit about the challenges inherent in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. In this series of posts, I want to go further argue that the U.S. should abandon the paradigm of [...]
[...] written quite a bit about the challenges inherent in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. In this series of posts, I want to go further and argue that the U.S. should abandon the paradigm [...]