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National Media Day on Afghanistan |
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This post is part of a National Media Day of Action on Afghanistan. See Jason’s post for more.
In Afghanistan, the months ahead will likely offer more of the same: more civilian casualties, more drone strikes and, potentially, more American troops. In fact, as tensions ramp up before the election in late August, violence may increase further. Meanwhile, the administration does not appear to be any closer to achieving its stated goals of defeating Al Qaeda.
At, however, opposition to escalation is growing among the public. And some policymakers are growing increasingly skeptical about the tactics we’re using in South Asia. In a high-profile dissent, David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, prominent COIN thinkers, denounced drone strikes in Pakistan and advocated their abandonment. If Kilcullen and Exum feel that way, you can bet others, less vocal, are also questioning our policies toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Congress, skepticism is growing as well. Sixty Representatives recently voted against a war funding supplemental, while Rep. James McGovern’s bill demanding an exit strategy for Afghanistan drew upwards of seventy co-sponsors. That may sound like an ignominious defeat for the skeptics - but to put it into perspective, roughly one-sixth of the House of Representatives is raising severe doubts over a war that supposedly enjoyed universal support just four months ago.
Opposition to escalation really has nowhere to go but up. One reason is that in many quarters, support for escalation was never strong to begin with. With only preliminary oppositional efforts from activists and national politicians, already nearly half of Americans oppose the war. And given that the news coming out of Afghanistan is rarely good, it is my belief that the more Americans know about the situation there, the weaker their support for escalation will become.
That’s why actions like this media day are so important. If support for the war is already wavering, imagine how strong the opposition will be after a few more months of public education and outreach.
I hope you’ll get involved, and if you’re still making up your mind about Afghanistan, check out Get Afghanistan Right and Rethink Afghanistan.
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Obama just promoted Cheney’s chief assassin & torturer in Iraq to commannd the AfPak Wars. Lt.Gen. McChrystal managed to terrorize, alienate and enflame many Iraqi’s. And that’s just the ones he didn’t murder. He should do great in the ‘Stans. Especially the one that has an internal Muslim fundamentalist insurgency plus nuclear-armed missiles and nuclear-missile-armed adversarial neighbors. How do you say “BOOM!!!” in Urdu?
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