Winners and Losers

I keep reading about fresh U.S. casualties in Afghanistan. The headline usually reads “worst month since…” And I can’t help but wonder what has gone wrong. The major news media used to make a big deal about U.S. casualties in Iraq. It was presented as a kind of game show countdown (or 'up'); some kind of doomsday clock. We were told it was Bush’s fault and that the war there was already lost and that any further action was meaningless - Bush’s war; not America’s war.

Now we’ve come full circle. The administration that got itself elected by promising to end Iraq and fight the ‘right’ war in Afghanistan now has exactly what it wanted. Still, the casualties continue to mount. It’s been a boon of sorts for Obama in that he can now claim victory in Iraq (which he has). But Afghanistan remains a daunting enterprise; first, because we don’t seem to know whom we’re fighting. According to the administration there are good Taliban and bad Taliban; there are corrupt politicians and despicable ones. And each and every one of them has turned against us.

The game there has become so skewed that we’ve been reduced to appealing for just one person to step forward and say, “Jolly good job, America! You can go home now and prosecute your soldiers for war crimes”; just one person we can manage to bring in front of cameras to attest to something good we may have inadvertently left behind: a school; a hospital; a charred poppy field; a woman left unscarred - anything at all that hasn’t immediately been erased in the time it takes to get an BBC news team to the site.

I wonder about the American families who have suffered the loss of dear ones in this wanton wasteland. I wonder if they understand how their personal loss advances America’s cause. I sure don’t.

These wars have been shamelessly politicized from the start to serve parochial political ends. As such, a great debate ensued between those who wanted us to win and those who wanted us to lose. That battle was decided right here in America when Obama came to power. While our first impulse to engage extreme elements within the Islamic tradition was proper - indeed unavoidable - since then, any thought about our actual mission there has been lost in the shuffle.

There have been winners and losers alright, but these have no longer anything to do with either Afghanistan or Iraq. Those people have been exploited for the purpose of bringing the Obama administration to power and subjugated Republicans. It is here that you find your winners and losers.