Obama officials labeled it a "new strategy," but to old Afghan hands it's just "much, much" more of the same.
KABUL, Afghanistan — “I never thought I would miss George W. Bush,” laughed a Western diplomat in Kabul last week.
He was speaking only half in jest. In the three months since Barack Obama announced his “new strategy” for Afghanistan, the rosy hopes with which he was greeted in January have darkened considerably.
It could hardly have been otherwise: Expectations were so high for the young president that anything short of daily miracles would most likely have seemed a letdown. But while Obama still commands a large reserve of trust and respect in Afghanistan, there is a growing skepticism about his Afghan policy, which for many seems a study in contradictions.
He has said openly that there is no military solution to the problem, but the mainstay of his plan is a significant increase in troops.
He has said that our one goal in Afghanistan is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but the truth is that Osama bin Laden and his band of global jihadists scampered over the border to Pakistan in 2001, right after the U.S.-led invasion. There they sit, spinning their plans in relative peace, while U.S. soldiers, unable to confront Islamabad, continue to punish the Afghan Taliban for a crime they did not commit.
The lofty rhetoric of the Bush years, during which “nation-building” shared the spotlight with the “Global War on Terror,” has been largely abandoned in favor of “stabilization.” Some call it realism, others see it as a cynical desertion of human rights and democracy.
Obama’s administration has unrolled a major initiative in “strategic communications” — designed to counter the Taliban’s propaganda offensive.
“We cannot let men on motorcycles or flatbed trucks monopolize the debate,” said a high-ranking U.S. official, speaking off the record. “Our message is complex, yet simple. It is: ‘The United States is here to help. We are not occupiers. And the Taliban are not great leaders of the faithful.’”
But while specialists in “psyops” argue over the wording of carefully planned, feel-good stories, Afghan television is showing photographs of a seven-day-old baby boy shot in a raid by U.S. Special Forces. No amount of “messaging” is going to erase that image, or convince Afghans who have lost loved ones that the killings are in their best interests.
The Taliban are not winning the propaganda war; we are losing it.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/090428/afghanistan-the-first-100-days
