September 22, 2009
MY AFGHANISTAN SIGHS
I don't like thinking about Afghanistan. I don't like reading about it, I don't like stressing about it. One of my friends said she was worried all weekend that I hadn't heard from my husband because she had read about some local soldiers being killed. I didn't even know it had happened. I have busied myself with domestic issues and ostriched myself to the war. And since my husband cannot tell me what he does and cannot talk about his life, it's easy to forget that he's not just away at summer camp.
Afghanistan bothers me, still.
But now with discussions of whether Obama will send additional troops, I have been forced to think about it a little. But reading and thinking about it just ruffles me more. Like this:
Sigh. I sigh about Afghanistan a lot.
McCarthy backs up Will:
Fred Barnes said last night that it's telling that McChrystal, who is at heart a counter-terrorism guy, is requesting additional troops for counter-insurgency. I hope he knows what he's doing. I hope he gets it right.
I know he knows more than I do.
I just know I hate thinking about Afghanistan.
[hat tip to Amritas for both links]
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Afghanistan bothers me, still.
But now with discussions of whether Obama will send additional troops, I have been forced to think about it a little. But reading and thinking about it just ruffles me more. Like this:
Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and even
if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: The Brookings
Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation with a weaker state.
Sigh. I sigh about Afghanistan a lot.
McCarthy backs up Will:
Notwithstanding al-Qaeda’s departure, the idea now seems to be that we
should substantially escalate our military involvement in Afghanistan
to replicate the experiment that supposedly worked so well in Iraq.
It’s the age of Obama, so our commanders are talking not about combat
but about a stimulus package to fight the “culture of poverty.†As
military officials described it to the New York Times,
“the overriding goal of American and NATO forces would not be so much
to kill Taliban insurgents as to make ordinary Afghans feel secure, and
thus isolate the insurgents. That means using force less and focusing
on economic development and good governance.†This is consistent with
the delusional belief that terrorism is caused by poverty, corruption,
resentment, Guantanamo Bay, enhanced interrogation tactics, Israel — in
short, anything other than an ideology rooted in Islamic scripture. But
before we all laugh George Will out of the room, we might remember that
the Taliban was not our reason for invading. We would not have gone to
war to save Afghanistan from the Taliban — which is to say, to save
Afghanistan from itself.
Fred Barnes said last night that it's telling that McChrystal, who is at heart a counter-terrorism guy, is requesting additional troops for counter-insurgency. I hope he knows what he's doing. I hope he gets it right.
I know he knows more than I do.
I just know I hate thinking about Afghanistan.
[hat tip to Amritas for both links]
Posted by: Sarah at
07:49 AM
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Me too. Sigh.
Posted by: Erin at September 22, 2009 09:34 AM (pK1qw)
2
Me too. My son is over there.
I avoid the news, I avoid the blogs, I try not to know. Because there really isn't anything productive that I can do.
So I make him peanut butter fudge and don't think.
I avoid the news, I avoid the blogs, I try not to know. Because there really isn't anything productive that I can do.
So I make him peanut butter fudge and don't think.
Posted by: tibby at September 22, 2009 09:45 AM (S/Fac)
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