Who could have seen this coming? The Washington Post has released, with great fanfare, “The Afghanistan Papers”, a massive study documenting what a massive disaster the War in Afghanistan has been. It’s too bad, however, that the Post has “forgotten” how earnestly it pushed that misbegotten war, as recently as August of this year, something I’ve been “chronicling” (or howling about) for more than a decade.
My first outburst dates back to January 2008, “Richard Holbrooke, acting bold, sort of”, in which bold-thinking Dick suggested in the Post’s pages that we might “solve” one tiny sliver of the ongoing Afghanistan debacle—namely, our absurd attempt to force Afghan farmers not to grow opium—by “giving consideration” to maybe doing something other than that which we were already doing. It may be said that Dick's excellent idea serves as a template for an unending series of "solutions" to the mess in Afghanistan, all of which simply amounted to an avoidance of the obvious, that the only "solution" was to recognize our own impotence and leave.
I followed that up with “Keeping Posted: The Myths Keep Coming” in February 2008, "refuting" Postie Ann Marlowe, who "refuted" the myth that things were going from bad to worse by arguing, in effect, that, well, you couldn't really prove that: they might be the same! After six years of unstinted expenditure of blood and treasure! So there!
After that, I remained relatively quiescent until September, when I exploded in alliterative rage, “The Ample Ass-Covering of Anne Applebaum”, which reads even more offensively now than it did than it did then—Anne’s column, I mean, not my heavy-handed sneering. Here’s a sample of what Anne had to say after her on-site inspection:
Though Americans like to talk about “winning” and “losing” the war in Afghanistan, on the ground it's clear that those categories aren't relevant. Of course we can “win”: The real question is whether we are willing to pay the high cost of victory.
Got that, America? If you’ve got the will, you’ve got the win. Though, of course, the price will be high. Just how high, Annie is willing to explain. See, the problem is, we just haven’t been facing up to the size of the challenge:
[W]e haven't exactly “neglected” Afghanistan, as Barack Obama and others often say. It's just that we haven't yet faced up to what we have undertaken to do here. Afghanistan is bigger than Iraq, more rugged, more impoverished and vastly more complicated, with more languages, more ethnic groups, more tribes and more-lethal neighbors. It has only begun to test our stamina.
Well, she got that right. But back in 2008 I was more than ready to call it quits:
So after seven years in Afghanistan we’re just getting started? And Afghanistan is going to be “vastly more complicated” than Iraq, where we’ve spent over 4,000 lives and accumulated more than $2 trillion in debt, with no light at the end of the tunnel? Hey, sounds like we’re going to have lots of fun! But don’t blame George! He was only the President!
After that, I mostly let the Post off the hook, on Afghanistan, at least, until February 2017, with a carom shot of sorts, headed “Bob Woodward a total tool, New York Times says. But not in so many words.“, because the Times, in an article describing how bureaucrats often leak sensitive material to limit the ability of political leaders—presidents in particular—from making policy decisions counter to what the bureaucracy prefers, provided an example of the tactic by linking to an old article by Bob in 2009 revealing the Pentagon’s review of the situation in Afghanistan before President Obama had a chance to act on it, thus ensuring that Obama would be attacked as “weak” if he didn’t endorse the troop increases Gen. McChrystal recommended, which is, of course, exactly what happened. It is “interesting” to note that in the current series of articles, the one dealing with McChrystal’s recommendations makes no mention of the leak and quotes exclusively sources hostile to Obama and Hillary Clinton, blaming her because—wait for it—she’s a woman! Also interesting: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a leading figure in the war, is never mentioned.
I again fell silent regarding the Post and Afghanistan until August 2019, when the Post editorial page virtually exploded in nonsense with a stunningly nonsensical editorial “Trump risks turning a chance for success in Afghanistan into a shameful failure”, causing me to counterexplode with “Dolchstosslegende at the Washington Post”, literally playing the “bad as Hitler” card, accusing the Post of peddling an updated version of the “Dolchstosslegende”—“myth of the stab in the back”—which Hitler used to blame Germany’s liberals for the nation’s defeat in World War i.
The Post has done a public service in providing a record of unending government duplicity and incompetence in Afghanistan. If only the Post hadn’t been such an eager partner in that endeavor as recently as August 2019.
