The Pentagon wants you to ignore some inconvenient facts about the failure of the escalation strategy in Afghanistan. The latest Petraeus/Gates media tour is under way in preparation for the general’s testimony to Congress next week, and they’re trotting out the same, tired spin they’ve been using since McChrystal was replaced in disgrace last year. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘escalation’
Pentagon Assertions of “Progress” In Afghanistan Are a Bad Joke
Posted: March 9, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, COIN, counterinsurgency, escalation, Gates, insurgents, Obama, Pentagon, Petraeus, propaganda, Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Gates, spin, Taliban, targeted killings, troop increase
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On Anniversary of Marjah Push, Escalation Strategy Still Failing
Posted: February 13, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Because It's Time, counterinsurgency, escalation, Gates, Marjah, McChrystal, Obama, Petraeus, Rethink Afghanistan
Exactly one year ago, on February 13, 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan launched the first major military operations enabled by President Obama’s 30,000 troop increase. President Obama and the high priests of counterinsurgency warfare, Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, made two major assertions about the escalation, that it would [...]
No Exit Strategy in Obama’s Speech, but Plenty of Escalation
Posted: December 2, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, escalation, Obama, Rethink Afghanistan, Robert Gates
The press is getting it wrong regarding the president’s announcement of the newest of his escalations in Afghanistan, which said: I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home…Just as we have done in [...]
Liveblogging the President’s Speech Tonight
Posted: December 1, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, escalation, Obama, Rethink Afghanistan
I’ll be liveblogging the President’s speech tonight at The Seminal. Hope you’ll stop in.
Time to Stand Up
Posted: November 30, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Christianity, escalation, Flobots, Jesus, Litany of Resistance, nonviolence, Obama, terrorism
The orders have been given. All that’s left is to give the speech before a bunch of strapping young cadets and install the procurator Augusti. Thirty-six thousand more troopsThirty thousand more troops, $1 million a piece, per year. More IEDs in response. More bombs. More night searches. More economic damage. Hope. Change. We’ve seen planes [...]
The Death Star Strategy in Afghanistan
Posted: November 10, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, Cesar Chavez, Death Star, escalation, Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther King, McChrystal, Obama, Reinhold Niebuhr, to Gandhi, troop increase
The last few hours have been a flurry of news reports on the President’s supposed decision on troop levels for Afghanistan. First, CBS News reported that the president planned to send roughly 40,000 troops to Afghanistan for about four years. Then, CNN reported that the White House angrily denied CBS News’ assertions, with two unnamed [...]
Is this what “shielding Afghans from violence” looks like?
Posted: October 1, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, civilian casualties, civilian deaths, COIN, counterinsurgency, escalation, McChrystal, Rethink Afghanistan
Note: Derrick Crowe is the Afghanistan blog fellow for Brave New Foundation / The Seminal. Learn how the war in Afghanistan undermines U.S. security: watch Rethink Afghanistan (Part Six), & visit http://rethinkafghanistan.com/blog. During his confirmation hearing, General McChrystal said: American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not [...]
U.S. Policymakers Let the Vietnam Comparison Out of the Bag
Posted: August 7, 2009 in UncategorizedTags: Afghanistan, escalation, Vietnam
U.S. officials and those in their orbit are now using the words “Vietnam” and “Afghanistan” in the same sentence. Top U.S. officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam war scholar to discuss the similarities of that conflict 40 years ago with American involvement in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is seeking ways to isolate an [...]
