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Adding insult to injury, Brennan has proved to be, well, not the brightest fellow around -- however bureaucratically astute. This became painfully clear when he showed himself unable to deal intelligently with the key question on terrorism -- why do they hate us? In January 2010, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas had the temerity to seek a cogent answer from him, to no avail. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Answering Helen Thomas on Why."]
It was downright embarrassing watching Brennan be at such a loss on live TV. I thought of the biblical Proverb, "Where there is no vision, the people perish," and how Brennan's ability to pronounce Abdulmutallab's name with impressive fluency can in no way compensate for a lamentable lack of vision.
So Where Do We Stand on Afghanistan?
Oddly, at the RAND conference mentioned above, it was Ambassador Khalilzad who addressed with striking candor the widespread public confusion regarding the war in Afghanistan. "People don't believe we know what we're doing," he said.
Now why in the world would he say that? And would he have reason to repeat those words today? In recent weeks alone, there has been a cacophony of conflicting commentary from senior officials about Afghanistan -- and very little in the way of clarity.
On Feb. 8, Afghan President Karzai said the Obama administration has been in secret talks with him to formalize a system of permanent military bases across the war-torn nation, though Obama has disavowed an interest in permanent bases.
In a speech at West Point on Feb. 25, Gates implied that he thought the Afghan War was nuts, telling the cadets:
"But in my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should "have his head examined,' as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it."
In early March, Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said the U.S.-led coalition has been killing Taliban militants by the hundreds, but there has been "no apparent degradation in their capacity to fight."
On March 11, Gates told NATO that the U.S. military suffered more casualties in 2010 than any previous year of the war, but "these are the tragic costs of success."
On March 15, Gen. Petraeus told senators that progress in Afghanistan is "fragile and reversible." He also emphasized the value of sustaining a long-term relationship with Kabul, and raised the possibility of operating "joint" U.S.-Afghan military bases with Afghan forces long after foreign troops are scheduled to withdraw in 2014. Petraeus noted: "It's very important to stay engaged in a region in which we have such vital interests."
So, two years after President Obama sank his feet deeper into the Big Muddy of Afghanistan, it's still not clear what the open-ended conflict is all about or who is really in charge.
Clearly, adult supervision is
lacking. It may be time to put out vacancy notices to solicit some
help from grown-ups.
This article first appeared at Consortiumnews.com.
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