Knight of Rook

The Pentagon recently held two wargames (here’s the link to the article). John Robb said on his blog that it was actually a “PR game aimed at influencing an internal audience.” The war in Afghanistan doesn’t seem to be about fighting Islam, terrorism, or even about bringing peace and stability to the country (nevermind my opinion on each of those goals for the moment). It has become about Washington politics. People, Americans, are dying in Afghanistan so the politicians in Washington can use it. On the left it’s about Obama not looking like an idiot. On the right it’s about trying to show how Bush doctrine was actually somehow right. I’ve said before that neither side actually has a good strategy, but I’ll take this a step further. Not only do both of them have lousy proposals, but they neither side cares about the consiquences on American troops. It’s about getting re-elected.