Stanley McChrystal’s Long War
Stanley McChrystal’s Long War – Dexter Filkens, New York Times Magazine.
… Success takes time, but how much time does Stanley McChrystal have? The war in Afghanistan is now in its ninth year. The Taliban, measured by the number of their attacks, are stronger than at any time since the Americans toppled their government at the end of 2001. American soldiers and Marines are dying at a faster rate than ever before. Polls in the United States show that opposition to the war is growing steadily.
Worse yet, for all of America’s time in Afghanistan – for all the money and all the blood – the lack of accomplishment is manifest wherever you go. In Garmsir, there is nothing remotely resembling a modern state that could take over if America and its NATO allies left. Tour the country with a general, and you will see very quickly how vast and forbidding this country is and how paltry the effort has been.
And finally, there is the government in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai, once the darling of the West, rose to the top of nationwide elections in August on what appears to be a tide of fraud. The Americans and their NATO allies are confronting the possibility that the government they are supporting, building and defending is a rotten shell…
More at The New York Times Magazine.
McChrystal’s Afghanistan – Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement
… Critics might say that Filkins, whose reporting notes the military view that Afghanistan and Pakistan are intricately entwined and cannot be separated strategically or tactically, doesn’t give the so-called Biden plan a full airing. However, it is a McChrystal profile, not a Biden one. Though that might be entertaining. Embedded in the District of Columbia.
Anyway, you’ll want to read the whole thing. You’ll come away with the sense of a man who, given the time and resources, might just pull off what he set out to do. Not the blindered military bumbler so popular in modern myth, the image that drives this country’s relentless push for political failure in war.* I knew there was a reason why Filkins is my favorite NYT reporter, and not just because his book, The Forever War, is the standout war memoir of our time…
More at Forward Movement.
