Afghanistan: The Battle For Helmand

I wonder, though, if his excursions in any way resemble those of McCain in Iraq last year. Hope his flak is working.

Who is paying this reporter? Because if its not the DoD information/propaganda office, it should be.

I especially liked this part of the report...

"All of Helmand's problems are tied to poppies," Mangal told his visitors, asking for U.S. support for the creation of a fruit processing and exporting zone that could compete with poppy cultivation.</blockquote

uh, no, Helmand's problems aren't "tied to poppies", poppes are the very heart of the Helmand economy. Poppies are a US problem, but Constable is so intent on her propaganda mission that she's incapable of differentiating between a problem for the USA, and a problem for the people of Afghanistan.

Plukasiak, don't you think it might be a little short sighted to only see how the poppy industry might impact the US? Granted, poppies are indeed a problem for our so-called war on drugs policy. However, a lucrative commodity such as this, run by strong men, whose brutality will know no bounds, might be considered a serious problem for the ordinary rank and file farmers who will be forced to do their bidding.

I doubt that anyone could really be that oblivious to the tactics of other drug cartels and their willingness to enslave whole populations in order to keep drug dollars rolling into their coffers?

And I find it even harder to believe that anyone as politically engaged as you has already forgotten what has happened to people in Mexico, considering how close it came to spilling its violence into our country just a few short weeks ago? I'm sorry, but in pure humanitarian terms, this is clearly not just a problem for the US.

Yes indeed Yutsano, the heroin trade is a problem for the entire world. It's just seemed like plukasiak was so intent in belittling the American effort that he seemed to forget the plight of the Afghan people.

The major point that I took from the article is that as long as these people are afraid the Taliban is coming back, what ever we do is a waste of time and effort. And we will never convince these people the Taliban isn't coming back as long as the poppy trade continues to flourish. Those who make their money from drugs will continue to employ the Taliban to run herd over the population. And you don't have to be an educated westerner to know that no one ever walks away from this kind of money voluntarily or easily.

Baby Steps: "Eikenberry, a retired Army general who often mingled with the public when he was senior military commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007, decided to take a short stroll in the Lashkar Gah bazaar, wearing a sport shirt and no flak jacket but surrounded by armed guards. He astonished shopkeepers as he bought tea and asked their children whether they were going to school. After 10 minutes he was whisked away in a convoy of bulletproof vehicles.

While I applaud Eikenberry's efforts, 10 minutes is a short time "t' be gettin' t' know th' locals" as P'wench would say.

If security is still that much of an issue, I fear we have a long way to go.

OT: "Goldman's Sudden Boom Could Be a Bust for Obama" - by Michael Sherer

WTF, MS? We just got done giving props for your Euro Tour (tm) and now you go talkin' this trash?

G'man's boom is goin' to hurt G'man.End of story.
@ $350K per analyst, it's time for them to pull back.

That, or finally acknowledge that "free market" economiks does not apply when you have a "TARP" to catch your fall.

If you want to do triple-somersaults with a safety net, then fore go the bonu$e$.

If you really believe in free markets, then bye-bye Goldman-Sachs and your $350K/yr dart-throwers.

We're having drinks, toasting the memory of Walter Cronkite. A journalist who's only concern was transmitting truth to the American people, who stood up and told America what the government already knew...the war in Vietnam was un-winnable. He died at a time when the most trusted newsmen in the country are comedians, and the people who he'd call his colleagues were he still practicing the dying art of journalism, are falling all over themselves offering politicians the opportunity to cover their misdeeds. Imagine if you will someone like Joe Klein or Michael Scherer, or even Karen Tumulty in that role....would we still be in Vietnam? Yes, the answer is yes.
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So here's a toast to Walter Cronkite! The king is dead, long live Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert! And that's the way it is.....

So this is the open thread until we get more beef on Monday?

Since this is an open thread, I'll throw a topic out there. Why has the international community nearly unequivocally come out in support of ousted President Zelaya? Quite strange bedfellows in the US, UN, and South American leftists all in common agreement. This is particularly interesting given Zelaya's blatant departure from constitutional norms. After a third term amendment was rejected by the courts, he turned to the military. He dismissed the head of the military for refusing to back his unconstitutional extension of power. Zelaya was subsequently removed from power for his attempt to retain authority illegally. His clear intent to violate the constitution and the judicial decisions coupled with his undeniably illegal removal of the head of the military for refusal to back his plan is in no way justifiable. How has the world given him rhetorical support?

Because ousting a constitution-trashing thug without funds for a presidential library is simply not done.

"Until recently, U.S. anti-drug programs in Helmand have focused on eradicating opium poppy crops, introducing other legal crops and giving farmers incentives to switch. But that effort has floundered, and now U.S. officials are shifting their emphasis to better law enforcement and interdiction of drug traffickers -- a much trickier and more dangerous task. "

Well. I guess you are going to have to put me in the cynical camp. Because if "All of Helmand's problems are tied to poppies," like the governor says and all we have to offer is eradication which we have already apparently pretty much given up on and interdiction, we are in a lot of trouble.

Less anyone forget, we have tried both of these before in Latin America and along our own borders and our efforts have not had very desirable results. In fact its pretty much been a failure. Playing whack a mole with eradication. Suppress in one Latin American country only to see it balloon in another.

Interdiction efforts in a country with no effective central or local governments, as vast and with as many remote areas as Afghanistan I don't have much hope for.

If we are dreaming of legitimate, accountable governance in Afghanistan? I'm sorry I just don't see this country having enough patience and money for the 30 to 50 years of effort that will it probably take to overcome the enormous hurdles with the drug trade just being one.

I don't see our own politicians having enough restraint to avoid screwing up good efforts for political gain nor do I have the confidence that the Afghans can deal with the serious corruption problems of their own.

I have serious issues with reports like this Post article anyway because its not like this reporter is roaming around the area neutrally observing, judging and reporting back to us what he or she is seeing. He or she can't do that. They are at the mercy of the military. A military with a history of exerting its authority over our press in foreign countries and a press that has a history of not being able to resist or challenge that military authority.

So, I'm cynical.

It is always amusing to watch a right-winger crying tears over some other nation's Constitution.
~

Max apparently has a problem with Goldman Sachs

food for thought:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911517,00.html

Forgive the length, but sometimes a link doesn't suffice. (Add: Isn't it ironic that one can't type "bullsh!t" here?)

Glenn Greenwald
Saturday July 18, 2009 07:19 EDT
Celebrating Cronkite while ignoring what he did
(updated below - Update II)

"The Vietcong did not win by a knockout [in the Tet Offensive], but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. . . . We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. . . .

"For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. . . . To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past" -- Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News, February 27, 1968.

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that [in the run-up to the Iraq War] . . . . if we did not stand up and say this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- David Gregory, MSNBC, May 28, 2008.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died, media stars everywhere commemorated his death as though he were one of them -- as though they do what he did -- even though he had nothing but bottomless, intense disdain for everything they do. As he put it in a 2005 speech to students at the Columbia School of Journalism: "the better you do your job, often going against conventional mores, the less popular you are likely to be . . . . By and large, the more famous you are, the less of a journalist you are."

In that same speech, Halberstam cited as the "proudest moment" of his career a bitter argument he had in 1963 with U.S. Generals in Vietnam, by which point, as a young reporter, he was already considered an "enemy" of the Kennedy White House for routinely contradicting the White House's claims about the war (the President himself asked his editor to pull Halberstam from reporting on Vietnam). During that conflict, he stood up to a General in a Press Conference in Saigon who was attempting to intimidate him for having actively doubted and aggressively investigated military claims, rather than taking and repeating them at face value:

Picture if you will rather small room, about the size of a classroom, with about 10 or 12 reporters there in the center of the room. And in the back, and outside, some 40 military officers, all of them big time brass. It was clearly an attempt to intimidate us.

General Stilwell tried to take the intimidation a step further. He began by saying that Neil and I had bothered General Harkins and Ambassador Lodge and other VIPs, and we were not to do it again. Period.

And I stood up, my heart beating wildly -- and told him that we were not his corporals or privates, that we worked for The New York Times and UP and AP and Newsweek, not for the Department of Defense.

I said that we knew that 30 American helicopters and perhaps 150 American soldiers had gone into battle, and the American people had a right to know what happened. I went on to say that we would continue to press to go on missions and call Ambassador Lodge and General Harkins, but he could, if he chose, write to our editors telling them that we were being too aggressive, and were pushing much too hard to go into battle. That was certainly his right.

Can anyone imagine any big media stars -- who swoon in reverence both to political power and especially military authority -- defying military instructions that way, let alone being proud of it? Halberstam certainly couldn't imagine any of them doing it, which is why, in 1999, he wrote:

Obviously, it should be a brilliant moment in American journalism, a time of a genuine flowering of a journalistic culture . . .

But the reverse is true. Those to whom the most is given, the executives of our three networks, have steadily moved away from their greatest responsibilities, which is using their news departments to tell the American people complicated truths, not only about their own country, but about the world around us. . . .

Somewhere in there, gradually, but systematically, there has been an abdication of responsibility within the profession, most particularly in the networks. . . . So, if we look at the media today, we ought to be aware not just of what we are getting, but what we are not getting; the difference between what is authentic and what is inauthentic in contemporary American life and in the world, with a warning that in this celebrity culture, the forces of the inauthentic are becoming more powerful all the time.

All of that was ignored when he died, with establishment media figures exploiting his death to suggest that his greatness reflected well on what they do, as though what he did was the same thing as what they do (much the same way that Martin Luther King's vehement criticisms of the United States generally and its imperialism and aggression specifically have been entirely whitewashed from his hagiography).

So, too, with the death of Walter Cronkite. Tellingly, his most celebrated and significant moment -- Greg Mitchell says "this broadcast would help save many thousands of lives, U.S. and Vietnamese, perhaps even a million" -- was when he stood up and announced that Americans shouldn't trust the statements being made about the war by the U.S. Government and military, and that the specific claims they were making were almost certainly false. In other words, Cronkite's best moment was when he did exactly that which the modern journalist today insists they must not ever do -- directly contradict claims from government and military officials and suggest that such claims should not be believed. These days, our leading media outlets won't even use words that are disapproved of by the Government.

Despite that, media stars will spend ample time flamboyantly commemorating Cronkite's death as though he reflects well on what they do (though probably not nearly as much time as they spent dwelling on the death of Tim Russert, whose sycophantic servitude to Beltway power and "accommodating head waiter"-like, mindless stenography did indeed represent quite accurately what today's media stars actually do). In fact, within Cronkite's most important moments one finds the essence of journalism that today's modern media stars not only fail to exhibit, but explicitly disclaim as their responsibility.

UPDATE: A reader reminds me that -- very shortly after Tim Russert's June, 2008 death -- long-time Harper's editor Lewis Lapham attended a party to mark the release of a new book on Hunter Thompson, and Lapham said a few words. According to New York Magazine's Jada Yuan, this is what happened:

Lewis Lapham isn't happy with political journalism today. “There was a time in America when the press and the government were on opposite sides of the field,” he said at a premiere party for Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson on June 25. “The press was supposed to speak on behalf of the people. The new tradition is that the press speaks on behalf of the government.” An example? “Tim Russert was a spokesman for power, wealth, and privilege,” Lapham said. “That's why 1,000 people came to his memorial service. Because essentially he was a shill for the government. It didn't matter whether it was Democratic or Republican. It was for the status quo.” What about Russert's rep for catching pols in lies? “That was bullsh[i]t,” he said. “Thompson and Russert were two opposite poles.”

Writing in Harper's a few weeks later, Lapham -- in the essay about Russert (entitled "An Elegy for a Rubber Stamp") where he said Russert's "on-air persona was that of an attentive and accommodating headwaiter, as helpless as Charlie Rose in his infatuation with A-list celebrity" -- echoed Halberstam by writing:

Long ago in the days before journalists became celebrities, their enterprise was reviled and poorly paid, and it was understood by working newspapermen that the presence of more than two people at their funeral could be taken as a sign that they had disgraced the profession.

That Lapham essay is full of piercing invective ("On Monday I thought I'd heard the end of the sales promotion. Tim presumably had ascended to the great studio camera in the sky to ask Thomas Jefferson if he intended to run for president in 1804"), and -- from a person who spent his entire adult life in journalism -- it contains the essential truth about modern establishment journalism in America:

On television the voices of dissent can't be counted upon to match the studio drapes or serve as tasteful lead-ins to the advertisements for Pantene Pro-V and the U.S. Marine Corps. What we now know as the “news media” serve at the pleasure of the corporate sponsor, their purpose not to tell truth to the powerful but to transmit lies to the powerless. Like Russert, who served his apprenticeship as an aide-de-camp to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, most of the prominent figures in the Washington press corps (among them George Stephanopoulos, Bob Woodward, and Karl Rove) began their careers as bagmen in the employ of a dissembling politician or a corrupt legislature. Regarding themselves as de facto members of government, enabling and codependent, their point of view is that of the country's landlords, their practice equivalent to what is known among Wall Street stock-market touts as “securitizing the junk.” When requesting explanations from secretaries of defense or congressional committee chairmen, they do so with the understanding that any explanation will do. Explain to us, my captain, why the United States must go to war in Iraq, and we will relay the message to the American people in words of one or two syllables. Instruct us, Mr. Chairman, in the reasons why K-Street lobbyists produce the paper that Congress passes into law, and we will show that the reasons are healthy, wealthy, and wise. Do not be frightened by our pretending to be suspicious or scornful. Together with the television camera that sees but doesn't think, we're here to watch, to fall in with your whims and approve your injustices. Give us this day our daily bread, and we will hide your vices in the rosebushes of salacious gossip and clothe your crimes in the aura of inspirational anecdote.

That's why they so intensely celebrated Tim Russert: because he was the epitome of what they do, and it's why they'll celebrate Walter Cronkite (like they did with David Halberstam) only by ignoring the fact that his most consequential moments were ones where he did exactly that which they will never do.

UPDATE II: In the hours and hours of preening, ponderous, self-serving media tributes to Walter Cronkite, here is a clip you won't see, in which Cronkite -- when asked what is his biggest regret -- says (h/t sysprog):

What do I regret? Well, I regret that in our attempt to establish some standards, we didn't make them stick. We couldn't find a way to pass them on to another generation.

It's impossible even to imagine the likes of Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw and friends interrupting their pompously baritone, melodramatic, self-glorifying exploitation of Cronkite's death to spend a second pondering what he meant by that.

jcapan you might like to read what Walter Cronkite had to say about the Iraq war. I found this at Think Progress.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/19/cronkite-iraq-war/

Jcapan, thanks for that.

Who knows, maybe even Joe Klein might learn something.
~

Maybe, after that article, it might be worth it to hear from the Head Swampers about what exactly both Cronkite's and Halberstam's passings have meant to them and whether either of these fine gentlemen were responsible for their career choices. K-Tum seems to imply in her autobiographical snippet that there is much more to her story in becoming a journalist than meets the eye.

We have pretty much lost our f**king minds.

For any one not able to list to the video here is a transcript of this sick exchange.

Fox News' Julie Banderas:

"So when one of our troops is captured, how do we get him back? How do we get him back safely? Strategic analyst Lt. Col. Ralph Peters joins us now. Thank you so much for talking to us. When he was capture don June 30th, apparently Bergdahl was captured while he walked away from his U.S. base camp. Many people are emailing me, and asking, 'How can a soldier walk off from a base on his own? Wouldnt there always be another soldier with him? Wouldn't he be partnered with another person?' What can you tell us about that?"

Ralph Peters:

"Well, Julie, I was to stress first of all that we must wait until all of the facts are in until we make a final judgment. But nobody in the military that I've heard is defending this guy. He is an apparent deserter. Reports are indeed that he abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and walked off. We'll see what the ultimate truth of it is, but if he did, if he's a deserter at wartime, well, as one of my old platoon sargeants would say, he's in 'boku deep kimchi.' Now there's another problem Julie. On that video, he is collaborating with the enemy. Under duress or not - that's really not relevant - he's making accusations about the behavior of the military in Afghanistan that are unfounded, saying that there are no rules, he's lying about how he was captured, saying he lagged behind the patrol. Julie, I'll tell you, any 11th bravo infantrymen will tell you, that's not how it works. In a war zone, any soldier is aware of where all his buddies are. If it's a night patrol, you're sure aware of where the guy in front of you and behind you is. So we know that this private is a liar. We're not sure if he's a deserter. But the media needs to hit the pause button, and not portray this guy as a hero."

Banderas:

"Wow. All right, well, I mean, obviously I don't want to speculate here. From what I know, what we know as a news agency, we watched this video - first of all, the reason we are not airing the video, the network has decided we will not air this video, because that is what his captors want. They want that message to get out there, and we're not going to do the Taliban any favors here. But in a case like this, where a soldier is taken captive, how does the military prepare for this, number one, and how do they get their guy back?"

Peters:

"Well, the military prepares for it by rigorous training. All soldiers know the code of conduct, what you are allowed to do, and not allowed to do, when you're in enemy hands. And there are strict limits. And they're for sensible reasons, because you don't want to betray information about your unit, your buddies, battle plans, etc. As far as getting him back... we don't know. First of all, I would bet that he's not even in Afghanistan anymore, I'd bet he's across the border in Pakistan. I don't know that. The best bet getting him back is tipsters, surveillance, special operations. For right now, I think he's okay. They're not going to kill him right away, if at all, because he is tremendous propaganda value. He's making anti-American statements, I mean, he wants to investigate Islam, blah blah blah.

Now look, Julie, I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I'm with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies at wartime... I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.

Banderas:

"All right, Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, thank you very very much. Regardless of what the situation is, we do not want to see any U.S. soldier in harm's way. And we hope this guy gets out of there safely, he's an American, he's one of ours..."

Peters (interrupting):

"Hey Julie - think about his buddies. Think about his buddies."

Banderas:

"Yeah. And of course everyone who's over there, and in his group. All right, thank you very much for talking to us."

Good ol' Blood and Guts Ralph Peters.

He's a real FAUX news kind of guy.
~

If I was Obama, as C in C, I would have Peters discharged summarily and dishonorably on conduct charges!

What is our goal is in Afghanistan? Protect the Afghani people from the Taliban? Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said before the Senate Armed Service Committee (link) that “the measure of effectiveness will not be enemy killed. It will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence.” So this is a humanitarian mission? This from the man that previously ran the Joint Special Operations Command- a unit responsible for assassination strikes that killed so many Afghani civilians. And how many Afghanis need to be shielded before we claim success? We're attempting to lessen violence by marching in an additional 20,000+ troops, wtf? If less violence is the measuring stick, then pack-up the troops and get out.

Are we trying for a stable, democratic government in Afghanistan? Good luck with that. If achievable (highly doubtful) how many decades would it take? And assuming we achieve this type of government, why should we believe that they will be friendly to the US and our interests? We'll likely create another government that doesn't like us, or at least is difficult to deal with.

We are building another three-quarter if a Billion $$ embassy- this one in Afghanistan (link). The Taliban is not al Qaeda. The Taliban is not well organized nor a significant armed threat. They certainly can't attack the US. Terrorists can plan an attack from the “safe haven” of their Blackberries anywhere in the world. Our folly in Af/Pak won't change that. If Bush was following the same strategy, we'd all be screaming “Imperialism”, “War-mongering”- and rightly so. What is Obama doing? We said in November that we want something different. War is still our fiscal policy. We still spend $700 billion plus per year on our military --at the expense of our nation's health and economic well-being. Enough!