Gen. David Petraeus appeared on NBC this morning and rebutted the declarations of mission accomplished:We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.The careful reader will recall that it was Thom Friedman, intrepid optimist, NYT columnist and Iraquagmire cheerleader who inadvertently gave birth to the 6-month interval as a definitive measure of progress. His repetitive invoking of overlapping 6-months periods constitutes one of many false prophecies which have coaxed my fellow Americans through this costly, bloody, and unremitting occupation for the last five years. My guess is that Friedman is not especially proud of his namesake, the Friedman Units.
Nevertheless, they have broken his credibility as an Iraq pundit, and he has had to own them. As Craig Unger has chronicled in his book, Fall of the House of Bush, for years Friedman has been promising his faithful readers their deliverance just around the next corner. Starting in the NYT (28-Sep-05): Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time.Face The Nation (18-Dec-05):
We teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together.Charlie Rose (20-Dec-05):
We are at the beginning of - I think - the decisive - I would say - six months in Iraq, okay, because I feel this election - you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it.NYT (21-Dec-05):
The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it - and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful.Oprah Winfrey Show (23-Jan-06):
I think we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand.CBS (31-Jan-06):
I think we're in the end game here, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time and Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick to it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out.Today-NBC (2-Mar-06) :
I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.CNN (23-Apr-06):
Can Iraqis ever get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us.Hardball-NSNBC (11-May-06):
Well, I think we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months - probably sooner - whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're just going to have to let this play out.Friedman may have experience an epiphany in his A Time for Plan B NYT (4-Aug-06):
It is now obvious that we are not midwifing democracy in Iraq. We are baby-sitting a civil war.Friedman senses himself exhausted and over extended (like our troops). It's time to call in fresh false prophets. Enter General Petraeus and Senator McCain.
In an interview, all Gates said was, I'm worried we're deploying NATO advisors that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations. . . Most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency; they were trained for the Fulda Gap.I wonder how many of my fellow Americans have ever heard of the
Fulda Gap? I certainly haven't. But Gates may have a point. Since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union unraveled, the Fulda Gap probably shouldn't have remained the central objective in the NATO training mission. Not until you remember that George Bush has done his level best to restart the Cold War, anyways.. . . bloody outrageous. I would beg the Americans to understand that we are their closest allies, and our men are bleeding and dying in large numbers. . . These sorts of things are just not helpful among allied nations.Col. Nico Geerts, the Dutch commander in Uruzgan, responded,
Our troops, men and women, are well-prepared for the mission. Everyone in the south, the British, the Canadians, the Romanians and our other allies, are working hard here. ... I wouldn't know what the secretary of defense of America is basing this on.I could go on, if I had the patience and time to do additional Googling this morning. But what really got my attention, right off the bat, was the Canadian reaction in the form of a lead editorial from the Toronto Star:
American Defence Secretary Robert Gates may well be right when he says that Canadian and European troops in Afghanistan are not well equipped to fight a counter-insurgency campaign. But what has been lost in the controversy over his impolitic remarks is that we did not sign on to fight insurgents – there or anywhere else.Which lays it all out.
The International Stabilization and Assistance Force, which NATO now commands and which includes some 2,500 Canadian soldiers, was set up in late 2001 by the United Nations to do just what its name suggests – stabilize a country emerging from years of civil war and assist the fledgling Kabul government in its redevelopment efforts.
Fighting the Taliban (or, as they were called then, the Taliban "remnants") was a job that Washington insisted on reserving to itself through what it called Operation Enduring Freedom.
Canada helped out in that one too, sending troops to serve under U.S. command in 2002. But in those days, America wanted to keep its sometimes squeamish allies well away from a dark war that was aimed primarily at capturing terror suspects and transferring them to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
It was only after 2003, when the U.S. found itself troop-short and bogged down in Iraq, that Washington changed the rules of engagement for its allies. Gradually, Afghanistan became NATO's war. Washington's plan then was to gradually reduce its 20,000 troop commitment to Afghanistan and switch them over to Iraq.
Which is why, since 2006, Canadian troops have found themselves under fire in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
It's worth remembering that we keep sending soldiers to Afghanistan not because Canada has been attacked by the Taliban, but because our friends, the Americans, feel they are at war with them.
The Dutch are in southern Afghanistan for the same reason. So are the British – who have paid a severe price at home for their decision to support Washington's various anti-Islamist wars.
That's why Gates' comments rub so raw in this and other NATO countries. Since 2001, one Canadian diplomat and 77 soldiers have died in Afghanistan. More than 250 more have been wounded in action. Yet this was never our war. It was always America's.
The U.S. chose to declare Afghanistan the enemy after the terrorist attacks of September 2001. Had Washington elected to avenge 9/11 by invading the country from which most of those terrorists came, Canadian troops would now be fighting in Saudi Arabia.
Their call, their war, their show.
Well, they're always talking, 24-7! Some things, during some understandable lapses, are bound to slip out.The solution is to spend less time in front of the open mic and more time in front of an open book. Try reviewing American history, for example. Checkout the American holocaust about which you're apparently in denial.
Racism needs to be reported. Blatant, inadvertent, miscalculated, all kinds.We can't afford to lose all persepective, but it has to be recognized for what it is and talked about. And a Tilghman or Imus might have to take a time out before we can move on. But this stuff has to be aired out in the sun.
For that reason, I salute
