Turning That Frown Into A Smile - Why I Was Wrong About Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

For nearly two years I have been a harsh critic of the war in Afghanistan. For months and months I have railed at the false signs of progress, the failed US military approach to the war, the lack of a coherent political strategy, the shameless cheerleading of war supporters etc - but today that has all changed.

What shifted my view? Well, it was actually an op-ed I read in the Washington Post by Craig Charney and James Dobbins. I highly recommend reading this transformative article because I think it will have the same lightning bolt-like effect on you that it had on me. To sum up here are the key arguments:

1) Things used to really stink in Afghanistan; but they stink a bit less today.

Evidence: "Afghanistan’s gross domestic product has tripled. This puts Afghanistan on a par with China in its double-digit economic growth rate, though from a much lower base."

Just for the record, Afghanistan's GDP is $11 billion; China, about $5 trillion. But hey GDP growth is GDP growth. So as the kids say, Cha-Ching!

2) Things stink in Afghanistan; but in other places people think their countries stink more.

Evidence: "Polling confirms that Afghans are very troubled by official corruption, but they don’t compare their government to Switzerland’s. If they look abroad, they look at their neighbors — Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, Pakistan and Iran — and see systems generally far less accountable than their own. Afghans are also very concerned about still-rising violence, but they put that in context. Recent levels of violence do not compare to the levels that Afghans experienced in the 1980s and ’90s."

This seems incontrovertible - and I'm only amazed that I didn't see it sooner. Surely Afghans watch updates on their nightly news or read articles on their iPads and shake their heads at how bad things are going for the Turkmens. And when an Afghan child dies the reaction of family members and their community is "Eh, things were worse when the Russians were here. God Bless America, U.S.A, U.S.A!!"

3) Americans think things are going badly in America; and as a result they think things are going badly in Afghanistan.

Evidence: "The difference is that most Afghans are better off now than in the recent past, while most Americans are not. Consequently, they are optimistic — and we are the opposite. This also helps explain the drop in American support for the war, which says a lot more about how Americans view their prospects than how the Afghans view theirs."

So to clarify; Americans are pessimistic about their future, which stands in stark contrast to the bubbly optimism of your ordinary Afghan citizen. Because we are such a country of Debbie Downers we can't see all the many signs of progress in Afghanistan that is captured by unarguably exact public opinion polling. Thus . . . things are going well in Afghanistan and the country is perched on cusp of a political and economic renaissance.

Honestly, how could one argue with this logic.

Now of course my "change of heart" is a rather lame effort at an April Fool's Joke - this op-ed unfortunately is not a joke (well not purposely at least).

And for the families of these six young Americans . . . there won't be any laughter today.

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