The Choices That Closed a Window Into Afghanistan <\/a>
New York Times<\/strong>
MICHIKO KAKUTANI
July 13, 2009
Book Review of:
IN THE GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES: America’s War in Afghanistan <\/strong>
By Seth G. Jones <\/div>\n
New York Times<\/strong>
MICHIKO KAKUTANI
July 13, 2009
Book Review of:
IN THE GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES: America’s War in Afghanistan <\/strong>
By Seth G. Jones <\/div>\n
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It’s hard for the reader to finish this volume without being struck by the remarkable parallels between the American failure to prevent a re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and its failure to prevent the emergence of an insurgency in Iraq. In both cases the determination of Donald H. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to use a smaller deployment than others recommended [what Mr. Jones calls a “light footprint”] and to attempt to do reconstruction on the cheap resulted in a lack of sufficient troops and resources to maintain law and order and to provide the local population with basic services like electricity. In both cases these failures led to residents’ growing dissatisfaction with the United States-backed government and a tilt toward the insurgents, who rushed to fill the power vacuum. <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
While I’ve consistently come down on the side of ignoring President Obama’s idea that we should move ahead – that we need to focus on our current dilemma and put aside feelings about the past Administration, privately I’ve questioned that opinion. When you know that you feel something strongly [in this case – anger], it’s hard to deny it as a prime motivator. This paragraph in a book review resonates with the other side of my feelings about these last eight years. A small number of men who did not know what they were doing were able to control our course of action in responding to a serious National Threat – George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld [and friends]. They didn’t listen to our experts. They did what they thought was right and were able to grab the power to make cataclysmic mistakes. From another book review:<\/div>\n
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The reason to exhume their methodology is clear. It’s the same reasons doctors push for autopsies in difficult cases – to find out what they missed and what went wrong, in order to learn from bad experience so as not to make the same mistakes. Most physicians involved in critical care have made fatal mistakes – myself included [and the ones that sting the most are the ones where I didn’t get outside help when I needed it]. We physicians have a rule, "Do no harm." It’s an impossible rule, but it’s a worthy goal. When we fail, it’s incumbant on us to look at why – in detail. When a country makes a mistake this large, we need the autopsy to look at our failure squarely in the eye. It’s not just about the Bush Administration. It’s about the American people and the American system that allowed this to happen…<\/strong><\/font> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"