The Hinge of Plan Afghanistan

by anderson

Like a wad of dead gum stuck to the roof of the mouth, I've had this David Brooks item on the burner for a bit and wanted to clear it off, now that Obama has officially advanced the military aspect of the Afghanistan escalation.  The critical aspect of the escalation, it turns out, is not the escalation, but McChrystal's plan to bring local Afghans and the US military together.  A sing-a-along is surely on tap once those troublesome Afghans lay down their arms and bask in the glories of freedom and democracy.

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It's hard to know what, exactly, David Brooks believes. His mind is such a slough of establishment guano, he'll suck up anything shot, spat or shat at him, savour it longingly, and then regurgitate his lightly masticated establishment shit-cud onto his adoring readers, whoever these sadly misdirected people may be.

Which begs the question: besides the jerk-offs on the mainstream media yak-abouts, who are these people? Which begs further still speculation that David Brooks is simply an establishment foil, a lightning rod for scorn and opprobrium, conducting outrage against the depredations of empire safely to ground.

HIs latest dollop reeks of Pentagon ejaculate, an ode to Gen. McChrystal and his desire, nay threat, to go big or fail in Afghanistan.

This is a doctrine, as General McChrystal wrote in his remarkable report, that puts population protection at the center of the Afghanistan mission, that acknowledges that insurgencies can only be defeated when local communities and military forces work together.

Local Afghan communities working together with US military forces.  My, what a dream.  It's like Martin Luther King.  McChrystal is a genius isn't he? Apparently, in David Brooks' withering eye. Why, what better a partnership than "local communities" -- a phrase granted by his imperious perspective -- and invading military forces? Despite there being no actual evidence in the history of humankind that occupation military forces and the besieged "local communities" get along all that well, McChrystal surely has a new formula, one that somehow overrides the historical reality that it is that insurgencies and local communities that work together against an invader. And, you, General McChrystal, are the invader. This war will end when you leave, perhaps not well until after you leave, but not before.

Of course, this is nothing General McChrsytal and the rest of the military establishment do not already know. The fight cannot be about establishing representative government because the fight will not end. They know this. Which means this war, and its proposed escalation, are about something else. But establishment care takers like David Brooks do not occupy lofty chairs in their chosen profession because they are noble truth tellers.

But then, you already knew that.