"The Surrealism of the Afghan Surge" by Jeffrey Sachs

[StarfarerBill]

"President Barack Obama risks leading the US deeper into the same kind of nightmare as Vietnam, with the same profound misconceptions and arrogance of the US military and the CIA. It just requires a glance at the picture on p. A29 of Sunday's New York Times to see how absurd the US decision-making process really is. Among the people in the room briefing the president, there isn't a single person with deep non-military knowledge of either Afghanistan or Pakistan. We see plenty of generals and politicians but nobody who knows about the people, culture, economy, climate, agronomy, extreme poverty, and traditions of the people themselves."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-surrealism-of-the-afg_b_382281.html

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. an excellent article that should be read in full

As in Vietnam, this mission is all about us. And as in Vietnam, the US escalation has the possibility of causing much broader destabilization in Central and South Asia and the Middle East. Perhaps, as Bill Moyers powerfully demonstrated about Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War buildup, the current momentum for escalation may reside in the president's fear of right-wing attacks if he shows "weakness" by denying the generals' request for more troops. Tellingly, and disastrously, Johnson knew that escalation in Vietnam would not succeed yet he saw no alternative to escalation because he feared a perception that he was weak vis-à-vis the communist threat.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/the-surrealism-of-the-afg_b_382281.html

[IrateCitizen]

2. I'm glad Sachs has come around, but this assessment could just as easily have applied to him...

... when he was orchestrating the destruction... ahem, I mean "shock therapy" of Bolivia's economy in the mid 1980s and the same of Russia's in the early 1990s.

Nevertheless, he makes some very valid points -- and ones that are thoroughly expected from the insular bubble of Washington, DC.