But my complaint with Ms. Marlowe goes deeper. The Standard is not the only place she’s printed similar rubbish—the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other magazines have all run stories by her, and they have a similar tack.

Regardless, I don’t think trotting out Riefenstahl is a useful example. There are many other propagandists and forms of propaganda, and what Ms. Marlowe and similar reporters are doing does not even vaguely approach covering for the Nazis. The kind of propaganda I’m talking about is more akin to the fluff in Stars & Stripes than anything else — sensationalist lollygaggery. Which is not Serious Reporting by any stretch, nor is it even remotely vigorous.

Dr. Rodgers, I wonder if I could prevail upon you to comment over here?

While I was there, there was a constant battle with the military who wanted to take over Police Training. At that time the military was training the Afghan National Army (ANA). The Afghan government opposed the military involvement in Police Training as they wanted them civilian oriented as opposed to military oriented. The State Department fought the military over this issue as did the Departmet of Justice.

Although, the Department of Justice had done nothing less than a phenominal job in designing, implementing and managing the Police Training Program, the State Department did not renew it’s contract in 2005. With the DOJ contract terminated, I lost my job and came home. Within a year after the State Department taking over the Police Training, the military was successful in it’s goal of taking control.

While I have great admiration for the military and their mission, Police Training is not part of it. They are not trained or experienced in the Rule of Civil Law and particularly in the philosophy of Policing in a Democratic Society. My contacts in Afghanistan advise me that there has been a substantial decrease in the qualitative aspects of the program. Apparently the battle over who controls what is still going on between the State Department INL and the military. Until the politicians in Washington understand the nature of the Afghanistan problem (Iraq as well) and get the military out of Police Training problems will continue to exist.

On the resurgence of the Taliban. They only survive because there are small pockets of support in various parts of the country. As with any guerrilla warfare environment, insurgents only exist where people provide support, food and a place to hide. Until recently, the military did not recognize this and operations were based on standard warfare models. Both the Army and Marine Corps have recently adopted a new Counterinsurgency Strategy which is being applied to both Afghanistan and Iraq. This strategy focuses on denying the insurgents that support from the local people that they need to survive. Success is being recognized in Iraq and is sure to follow in Afghanistan.

In the opinion of this observer, both Afghanistan and Iraq would be best served if the military focused on what they do best, seeking out and destroying insurgents and leave the training of the Police to the law enforcement professionals. This power struggle serves the interest of no one and especially not the people of the countries we are supposed to be helping.

Just like Africa. Interesting.

Thank you for the kind words (I’m somewhat embarrassed by them!). I think if you do some site searches, you can find what you’re looking for — I’ve written extensively here over the past two years of alternative approaches to the problems of Afghanistan’s corruption, opium cultivation, security, and economic development.

What I’m doing recently, and perhaps these could all be grouped together in a series, is tracking a strategic information campaign. I don’t assign the government nefarious motives, or at least I don’t intend to — they have every right to broadcast their message. I would quibble with the value of spinning as hard as they do, but that’s more for practical reasons (i.e. we aren’t served by thinking we’re winning when we’re not, which is a mistake the biased and misleading press coverage in the Soviet Union in the 1980s helped to propagate, leading to strategic paralysis) than anything else.

What bugs the hell out of me is how many reporters—almost uniformly American—are willingly making themselves PR outlets for the government. I could be over-idealizing a past that never existed, but I seem to recall the press serving a skeptical function, questioning government claims and checking them against a non-official reality. Right now that isn’t the case, and several journalists and experts are being given managed tours then simply reporting what they were told to report.

This doesn’t serve the public at all, which relies on press reporting to get at the “real” story behind things. If, as Ann Marlowe advocates, Afghanistan is teetering on the verge of victory, we buy into a narrative other than reality, and this leads to advocating bad policy. There may well be other gains in the new counterinsurgency techniques she profiles here, but she only measured it in terms of security, which is not a reliable metric of success.

In other words, it is lazy. But so are the writings of Thomas Johnson, Chris Mason, Bret Stephens, and David Ignatius. She isn’t alone, just singled out here.

These people need to be called out, because policy-makers listen to them. If their falsehoods get translated into policy, which is not uncommon, then we go down the wrong path and wind up worse off than we were before. I want to call them on their misleading reporting so that they won’t be used to formulate policy, especially among the hip new counterinsurgency crowd, which has an annoying tendency toward groupthink and away from critical analysis. They need skeptics, because I am not an expert in counterinsurgency and yet the works I read are filled with holes.

Does that make sense?

I enjoyed your essay immensely. You’re have at least two fine gifts: eloquence and a perspicacious mind that seems to have the refreshing ability to see issues in all their dimensionality. So because you now know that I’m a fan, take what follows as genuine puzzlement more than critique.

Beyond, perhaps, justifiably, taking Marlowe to the woodshed—your obvious ire with her work almost denudes your fine work of it’s value—I’m unsure what you’re offering in the affirmative. You did a terrific job of illuminating someone’s perhaps limited intellect and possible ignorance (or even irresponsible laziness), but beyond that, and beyond suggesting that the people who in part pay my bills are in some way patently nefarious, what is your point? If it was to say that Afghanistan is complex, that Marlowe parrots the party line because she doesn’t get it, then I’m disappointed. It would seem you’re wasting your considerable talent on petty, personal criticism. I understand your irritation with Ms. Marlowe. But why dignify her deficits by expending the energy that you did?

From this same perspective, your piece sheds some light on others’ failings, intellectual or otherwise. OK, the public needs to hear this. But reflecing on your essay, I’m wondering why, equipped as you are, ironically, and malcontentously carp when you can take it a notch higher by taking the positive tack.

I’m hungry for your take on what we need to be doing in Afghanistan. My understanding of the world there is woefully limited. I grasp how we fail but I grope for how we might succeed. (Maybe it needs to be framed in other terms.) I’d bet that others want to know this, too. Consider for your next post some positive prescriptions. It just might help.

Sincerely,
Dr. Evan Stark PhD