December 1, 2012
By Mickey Friedman
Ignore the gossip-mongers: the mission remains critical. We’ve invested so much making Afghanistan safe for Hamid Karzai and his drug-running relatives, it would be a crying shame to cut and run. Just because our generals appreciate the enthusiastic support and feminine charms of Paula Broadwell and Jill Kelley.
U.S. Army soldiers conduct a combat patrol in Khowst province, Afghanistan, Jan. 25, 2012. The soldiers are assigned to 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Epperson
Paula Broadwell met Peaches Petraeus at Harvard in 2006. In 2008, he became the subject of her doctoral dissertation on leadership. And they began to jog together. That same year, Peaches assumed leadership of ISAF, the international forces in Afghanistan. The dissertation became a book and Paula went to Afghanistan many times to run, to listen and learn. A “mentee,” she became.
As for the pesky war, General Petraeus testified in March 2011: “The momentum achieved by the Taliban in Afghanistan since 2005 has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in a number of important areas. However, while the security progress achieved over the past year is significant, it is also fragile and reversible.”
Photo: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2231538 “Photo-captures-Paula-Broadwell-gazing-Peaches-Petraeus-ex-CIA-director-arrives-hearing-wife.”
The fragile progress message is a tricky if very familiar message, but Petraeus delivered it with great sincerity, even charm.
Even in The Best Small Town in America, the message manages, if not really convince anyone, to at least dissuade us from engaging in anything resembling anti-Vietnam War mania. No mass marches. No sit-ins. Despite the deaths of 2158 American servicemen and women, close to 18,000 wounded, at a cost of almost $588 billion dollars.
The progress part ensures that our money continues to flow and guarantees our soldiers will continue to die. The fragile and reversible part of the equation implies that only a fool or worse would abandon the mission before completion. Which means an American presence and American money for decades to come.
Chart Thanks to costofwar.com
Some skeptics question whether our generals can successfully implement President Obama’s commitment to extract most of our combat forces while devoting such significant time and energy to hanky-panky and email canoodling.
Petraeus told the Senate that it’s all about “getting the inputs right.” Clearly Paula Broadwell, Peaches enthusiastic part-time paramour, agreed. Hence the title of her Petraeus book: “All In.”
Which means we’ve got to kill a lot more insurgents and kill them more quickly while successfully training our Afghan allies to kill their neighbors more quickly.
Petraeus testified: “In a typical 90-day period … precision operations by U.S. special mission units and their Afghan partners alone kill or capture some 360 targeted insurgent leaders.”
And “the past year alone has seen Afghan forces grow by over one-third, adding some 70,000 soldiers and police.” Petraeus enthusiastically referred to President Karzai’s Afghan Local Police initiative as “a community watch with AK-47s.”
You have to appreciate how Petraeus embraces dissonance and ambiguity, one of the hallmarks of our new post 9/11 Iraq/Afghanistan strategy. Kill those you can and arm those you can’t: “Some 700 former Taliban have now officially reintegrated with Afghan authorities and some 2,000 more are in various stages of the reintegration process.”
There are risks. The Shiites we armed in Iraq went on to slaughter their Sunni neighbors and plunge the nation into civil war. And recently “51 international service members have died at the hands of Afghan soldiers or policemen or insurgents wearing their uniforms. At least 12 such attacks came in August alone, leaving 15 dead.”
In March 2012, Peaches Petraeus’ replacement at ISAF, Marine General John Allen, and the other general in the dual war against the Taliban and marital boredom testified that he is continuing his predecessor’s good work. General Allen emphasized that “our troops know the difference that they’re making every day. They know it and the enemy feels it every day.”
General Allen/Jill Kelley – Photo: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/john-allen-emails-jill-kelley-maybe-flirtatious.html
You have to admire General Allen’s ability to multitask: making sure all of General Petraeus’ work in Afghanistan is not abandoned while composing what the whiners at CBS News call thousands of “inappropriate communications” to Jill Kelley. Yes, the General took her on a jet, and yes, he called her sweetheart. But she probably is a sweetheart.
And just for the record, ABC News assures us General Petraeus didn’t sleep with Paula Broadwell while he was commanding our troops in Afghanistan. He waited until he was the head of the CIA. And Paula Broadwell didn’t completely succumb to crazy-making jealousy until months later when she became convinced Jill Kelley wanted her man as well as General Allen. Well not really her man, but Holly Petraeus’ man. It’s important, I think, to acknowledge and appreciate their collective restraint.
The important lesson is stick to your own general.
According to infidelity websites, 57% of men admit to cheating on their significant others, while 54% of women are unfaithful. We may lose the war against the Taliban but we will win the war against fidelity. And once again, make the world safe for whoopee.
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If you want learn more:
http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2011/03/full_text_of_general_petraeus.php
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57513722/4-u-s-troops-killed-in-afghan-insider-attack/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/world/asia/student-killed-in-melee-at-afghan-university.html