Why does it matter that Petraeus now commands in Afghanistan?
The short answer: it doesn’t matter at all.
He’s been McChrystal’s overseer at CENTCOM for months and their counter-insurgency strategy so far has totally failed.
Oh, and back in Iraq, scene of the great “surge success”, the sectarian killing still goes on, the government still hasn’t been formed, and everyone’s waiting around for the US to leave so they can resume their civil war.
What’s the strategy now?
Can’t be about building up Afghanistan, because the local army and police are totally incapable of taking over and Congress has decided to cut off infrastructure funding. So much for winning hearts and minds…
Can’t be about capturing terrorists, since they’re all in Pakistan blowing up whatever takes their fancy.
What’s interesting about Afghanistan is the same lack of connection to reality in Washington that guides US economic policy.
We must be seen to be doing something, but not too much, because we simply don’t have enough troops there to pacify the country and unemployed people in our country must suffer.
We hope nothing bad will happen before this year’s election, but if it does it will be even harder to both withdraw from Afghanistan and get more stimulus passed.
Gorilla says: “Welcome to the age of non-leadership, hit and hope is the new and the old reset!”
