Note: This Reuters report provides additional relevant information. A pdf copy of the referenced ICG report can be downloaded from this link: Afghanistan: Exit vs. Engagement
Chuck Spinney
December 2, 2010
The Unmentioned Question
Staying the Course in Afghanistan
By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY
Counterpunch
A report, “Afghanistan: Exit vs. Engagement” released on 28 November 2010 by the International Crisis Group (ICG), an organization biased to advocate the neo-imperialistic policy of “humanitarian intervention,” is very important and should be studied carefully for at least two reasons:
First, and most importantly, the ICG makes a concise, and I think accurate, summary of how badly things have gone wrong in Afghanistan, particularly at the all-important grand strategic level of conflict, where the destructive effects of a military strategy must be harmony with, but subordinate to, the constructive aims of the larger political strategy. The ICG’s devastating indictment reveals in considerable detail the extent to which the United States and its Nato lackeys have thoroughly gomered up their nine-year intervention in Afghanistan.
Second, the ICG report is obviously written to influence the so-called policy review that the Obama administration will make in December. Obama’s review is likely to simply rubber stamp the “stay-the-course” non-decisions made in the recent NATO conference in Lisbon. What is revealing about the ICG report is that, in stark contrast to its detailed analysis of our policy mistakes, it contains no concrete recommendations for evolving a corrective pathway into the future.
Phi Beta Iota: Immature intelligence, non-existent strategy, and partisan politicized decision-making processes combine to create the theater of the absurd. Ten threats, twelve policies, eight demographic players–either think about them together, simultaneously, or abandon all pretense of being qualified to govern.
