Same Tune, Different War

Cue up the Orchestra of Optimism:

The recent reports circulating in Washington’s national security establishment about the Afghan battleground of Marja show glimmerings of progress: bazaars are open, some 1,000 children are in school, and a new (and only) restaurant even serves goat curry and kebabs.

In Kandahar, NATO officials say that American and Afghan forces continue to rout the Taliban. In new statistics offered by American commanders in Kabul, Special Operations units have killed 339 midlevel Taliban commanders and 949 of the group’s foot soldiers in the past three months alone. At the Pentagon, the draft of a war assessment to be submitted to Congress this month cites a shift in momentum in some areas of the country away from the insurgency.

But as a new White House review of President Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan gets under way, the rosy signs have opened an intense debate at the Defense Department, the White House, the State Department and the intelligence agencies over what they really mean.

Right. Anybody who doesn't remember the optimistic statements as the Iraq spun deeper into chaos between 2004 and 2007 hasn't been paying attention. Of course, some people do know this:

A former C.I.A. official with longtime experience in Afghanistan said that the recent statements about American progress in Afghanistan reminded him of what was sometimes written about the Russians before they began withdrawing from Afghanistan in defeat in 1988, when they had been at war there for nearly 10 years. “I don’t find many people I talk to who really believe any of this,” he said.

Governments always want to sell a rosy vision of the war's progress to their people, whether the government is a democracy, a monarchy or a dictatorship.

One might recall what Emperor Hirohito said to his nation after almost every Japanese city was burned to the ground by fire raids, the seas blockaded by mines and submarines, and two cities nuked: "The war has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." Or one might recall the "Five O'clock Follies", where PR flacks for MACV kept handing out meaningless statistics of how many VC and NVA soldiers had been killed and how many tons of bombs had been dropped. All of which didn't mean a thing.

If we are not careful in Afghanistan, we are going to suffer a "light is at the end of the tunnel" moment, as happened in the Vietnam War.