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#  Compounding Tragedy in Afghanistan

March 15 2012

Written by Jonathan Dobrer.

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![](https://mail.citywatchla.com/images/stories/Mar-2012/cw1022d.png)WHAT WE DON’T KNOW - We said that the rage of the Afghan people over the Quran burning wouldn't change our plans to withdraw. We are now saying that the rage of the Afghan people over one of our soldiers slaughtering 16 of their citizens--women and children--won't change our plans either. Were I to believe our government, I would be in even deeper despair than I already am at our impossibly and unconscionably slow learning curve.

Fortunately, I have every confidence that the White House and administration spokesmen are lying. No administration, Republican or Democratic, ever wants to admit a mistake. This means that they can never admit to a change of policy. They know that any change will be used by the opposition as an admission of a mistake. Then the micro and meta questions will become, "Just when did you realize that you were wrong? Could you have realized it a minute or an hour, a day or month or year earlier? Why not?" Thus do we come to the great question posed by the young John Kerry in 1971, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"

The sad and tragic truth is that we didn't understand their world when we went in--and we did go in with good intentions. We do not understand them any better now after ten years. We are shocked that they rioted over the accidental burning of Qurans more than over the killing of 16 human beings. We do not understand that their values are different. We are more inclined to deny that they have values. We do not understand that they don't believe the Quran burning was an accident. They think we're better organized than that. They also believe that this was an offense against God.

Death, well that they understand. It is an every day companion. Death from Taliban, from drones, from earthquakes, from disease, from crime, from tribal warfare. They understand that a man can go berserk--and while they don't like it, it is less general and far narrower than religious insults.

We don't understand about ourselves that if we take young men and women and send them into battle for four tours and with a diagnosed head injury, they might not always be thinking too clearly. If we put them in a society where they have no way of distinguishing friend from enemy and the very people they train, work with, go on patrols with can, at any moment, turn their guns on them, they might go mad. And after what we did to our, as yet unnamed, soldier, Sec Panetta says that the death penalty is on the table. We seem to have neither shame nor sense.

The Afghan War is over. We lost. We did not establish a credible, no less democratic, central government. We did not defeat the Taliban or construct a bulwark against their return. Afghanistan remains tribal, divided and unable to agree on anything other than we are not longer welcome.

Obama's critics were correct when they observed that it was meaningless to triple our forces and at the same time announce our withdrawal. We could not say to potential allies that we would protect them against the brutality of the Taliban and that we would be gone in three years. The least educated peasant in a mountain cave understands this is deadly nonsense. No one could be moved to caste their lot with us on that thin assurance.

We did rid them of Al Qaeda, but that is almost trivial since Al Qaeda is not geographically specific but a network of terror and influence. So now they are in Pakistan and Yemen and Iraq (where they were not before the Iraq war). They are in Europe and America, in Venezuela and Mexico. The 9-11 hijackers trained in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany, Florida, Norman Oklahoma and San Diego.

So, the horrible developments of the past month won't change our plans? Really? Please pray that I'm right and our government is lying. Yes, a strange prayer request indeed. But these are strange times.

*(Jonathan Dobrer is an op-ed contributor to the Daily News and Friendly Fire and is a syndicated columnist. This column was posted first at Friendly Fire. More on Jonathan and his books at [www.Dobrer.com](http://www.Dobrer.com))*
-cw

CityWatch

Vol 10 Issue 22

Pub. Mar. 16, 2012

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