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In June, Afghanistan officially outpaced Vietnam as the longest war in American history – and Obama has quietly begun to back away from the deadline he set for withdrawing U.S. troops in July of next year. The president finds himself stuck in something even more insane than a quagmire: a quagmire he knowingly walked into, even though it’s precisely the kind of gigantic, mind-numbing, multigenerational nation-building project he explicitly said he didn’t want. |
✖ Via Rolling Stone: “The Runaway General” by Michael Hastings, June 25th, 2010“The horror….the horror” A well-worth reading article by 30 years old journalist Michael Hastings. For me, it’s less about taking side (either for the Obama administration of for McChrystal strategy and ideas) than about the complex difficulties surrounding any large scale war operations. It’s somehow reminescent of McNamara’ account of what he called “The Fog of War” in Errol Morris’ documentary of the same name (2003). Anybody who ever saw Coppola’s Apocalypse Now will likely remember the extensive use of smoke and fog and the effect it has on the rendition of the story. Newsweek as an short interview with Michael Hastings explaining how the Rolling Stone’s piece was written. |
• Jun 28, 2010 link notes tagged:
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confusion
destruction
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McChrystal
