By Brigitte L. Nacos
After reading of more suicide bombings, attacks on NATO
soldiers, and the killing of two German journalists in Afghanistan and
after listening to a NATO general’s assessment of the Afghan situation, I should
have been surprised to read Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s up-beat op-ed
article in the Washington Post. Strangely, I was not. More than five years
after 9/11, there is nothing surprising about the administration’s steadfast
efforts to put an optimistic spin on all its policies, particular if they
involve the war on terrorism. In his op-ed piece, Mr. Rumsfeld admits that “not
all news about Afghanistan is encouraging,” but concludes, “In Afghanistan, the trajectory is a hopeful
and promising one.” What is excluded here is probably more telling than what is
included concerning the true situation in Afghanistan.For example, in listing the successes of the last five years
of the liberated Afghanistan,
Rumsfeld mentions the growing economy but not the fact that the poppy plantings
are again drastically rising after promising decreases in previous years. As
for security, the Secretary of Defense’s account omits that except for Kabul
there are increasing security problems—not only in the mentioned South.
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