Gwyn: Insiders blab about Afghan war

[unhappycamper]

Gwyn: Insiders blab about Afghan war
By Richard Gwyn Columnist
2010/09/24 00:01:00

The most important aspect of American investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book, Obama's Wars, about the conflict in Afghanistan, is not the inside dope that he was able to dig out. It is rather that he so easily got many insiders to blab.

Woodward did ferret out some interesting stuff. One of the best bits is on how President Barack Obama's generals kept trying to get him to give them more troops. As soon as he'd set the number at 30,000, rather than the 40,000 they'd demanded, they immediately proposed he send in 4,500 “enablers” — that is to say, more troops under a different name.

Obama actually comes out well. He was trapped: He couldn't bug out after George W. Bush's “surge” had seemed to have worked in Iraq. But he knew the Afghan war was unwinnable in conventional terms, telling White House aides there had to be a plan “about how we're going to hand it off and get out.”

Gen. David Petraeus, now the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also comes out well. In an interview with Woodward, Petraeus said, “I don't think you win this war . . . You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives, and probably our kids' lives.”

~snip~

Petraeus's private agenda is the honour of the U.S. military. His purpose in Afghanistan is not to win — the goal all generals have sought throughout history — but not to lose, or at least not to be seen to have lost.