Everything on track and going fine in Afghanistan according to US Commander there. He and his predecessors have been spinning this garbage ever since 2001. It would have been bad enough then, but after 10 years of abject failure it is insulting. It is timed now to try to soften up public opinion in NATO countries and the US in particular in advance of the Taliban's Summer offensive. This will rock NATO forces and Karzai's apparatchiks for months until the Taliban feel like a rest again.
Petraeus's customary rose-tinted report doesn't quite square with this does it?
The Pentagon has ironically derived a great benefit from the Muslim revolutionary wave. All the lights suddenly shined in other directions, a phenomena that may continue all year. And Petraeus is likely to parlay his "success" into a reason to scrap the July 2011 deadline. Thus the reason to begin withdrawing will justify the need to stay. And if Western publics aren't responding now, I'm not sure they will this summer either.
ReplyDeleteA credible but depressing prognosis. Western publics will continue to watch the soaps I fear, James.
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