Thinking Afghanistan
Cover of 7/26 Newsweek. Subheading: "Nation Building Isn't Working. New Strategies for the War on Terror -- Richard N. Haass."
The word "Rethinking" has a mis-used prefix. It implies a prefatory condition. It is doubtful that the War on Terror was thought out prior to the U.S. invasion.
(And anyway, Haass, as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, should get on-board with the new name. WOT is sooo yesterday! It's gone past "Overseas Contingency Operations" -- it's now "CVE": Countering Violent Extremism. It's not just your backyard, garden-variety extremists anymore.)
Labels: afghanistan, al-awlaki phony war on terror, CVE, nation building, overseas contingency operations, richard n. haass
posted by Lisa at 4:57 PM
7 Comments:
Actually the federal government would like less thinking on how they spend the citizen's blood and treasure in foreign involvements. Less thinking and more obedience. Much better.
I'll have to disagree somewhat on the phony war on terror being thought out in advance. I'd say that while it wasn't thought out in the least bit intelligently that it was thought out. See 'Project for A New American Century'. It was thought out in terms of how to secure vast areas of the mid-East for the exclusive use of multi-national corporations and expand the borders of Israel all at the expense of American taxpayers. Because the people coming up with this planning are rather intellectually challenged it hasn't worked out anything like they had hoped though. Well except for the "expense of American taxpayers" part. But they certainly had thought about it for a long time and did have a plan. Their mistake was their plan was extremely flawed and did not properly cover procedure on getting to their desired end result. Nor did it contain proper contingency planning. In some ways I think it may actually be a good thing for us average folk that they didn't do a good job of it. It gives us an opportunity to cut them off at the knees.
Piss Poor Planning Prevents Proper Performance.
"Do you wrestle with dreams?
Do you contend with shadows?
Do you move in a kind of sleep?
Time has slipped away.
Your life is stolen.
You tarried with trifles.
Victim of your folly."
Songs of Muad'Dib Frank Herbert-DUNE
RangerHazen,
Excellent. Herbert's words are a condemnation of us all, in one way or another.
Terrible,
Yes, some thought, but as you say, fired by greed and motored by a ginned-up frenzy and anger among the populace.
Not a winning hand. First step before entering a game: Decide if the kitty is worth it.
Terrible,
You left out the word PRIOR when doing the P thing.
jim
Thanks for the heads up on the additional P Ranger. That certainly would be the best time frame for the planning. I will remember it.
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