Newsweek Cover Stories
Via Think Progress:
Here are some highlights from the real cover story. I strongly suggest you read the entire article if you want a more complete picture of our failure in Afghanistan.
It is extremely irresponsible of Newsweek to pull something like this, especially so close to the mid-term election. What motivation could they possibly have for promoting this story elsewhere in the world while bombarding Americans with inconsequential fluff?
Here are some highlights from the real cover story. I strongly suggest you read the entire article if you want a more complete picture of our failure in Afghanistan.
The religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11—and who suffered devastating losses in the U.S. invasion that began five years ago next week—are surging back into the country's center. In the countryside over the past year Taliban guerrillas have filled a power vacuum that had been created by the relatively light NATO and U.S. military footprint of some 40,000 soldiers, and by the weakness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration.
The harsh truth is that five years after the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, most of the good news is confined to Kabul, with its choking rush-hour traffic jams, a construction boom and a handful of air-conditioned shopping malls. Much of the rest of Afghanistan appears to be failing again.
There are not nearly enough U.S., Western or Afghan troops or resources in the field to counter them. At a time when the American president has resurrected Osama bin Laden as public enemy No. 1—comparing him recently to Lenin and Hitler—Bush's own top commander in the field, Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, says not enough money is being invested in creating a new Afghanistan.
Some critics point to a jarring mismatch between Bush's rhetoric and the scant attention paid to Afghanistan. Jim Dobbins, Bush's former special envoy to Kabul—he also led the Clinton administration's rebuilding efforts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Somalia—calls Afghanistan the "most under-resourced nation-building effort in history."
It is extremely irresponsible of Newsweek to pull something like this, especially so close to the mid-term election. What motivation could they possibly have for promoting this story elsewhere in the world while bombarding Americans with inconsequential fluff?
