[ by Charles Cameron — the Dostum is in the details ]
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It began like this:
Hardly anyone notices that Abdul Rashid Dostom will likely soon be Afghanistan's vice president, with U.S. support.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) September 12, 2014
– and Risen was on a roll… He went on to say:
Talk about a turnaround — in 2009, Obama promised to investigate my story about Dostom and the Bush Administration. Dostom’s forces were accused of killing thousands of Taliban POWs by suffocating them in large cargo containers. Dostom has denied it.
Ashraf Ghani, likely Afghanistan’s next president, used to call Dostum a “known killer.” Now he calls him his running mate. So as Iraq falls apart because of sectarian government installed by the US, the US is installing a govt. in Afghan. with a VP widely considered a war criminal by Pashtuns. Remember this whenever likely Afghan VP Dostum makes his first official visit to the US
So in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have failed to learn a basic lesson– counter-terrorism operations can’t be the end all and be all. They are only supposed to provide time and space for political settlements and reconciliation. But we have forgotten that part. We have focused on short-term tactical solutins for deep-seated problems. In Iraq, we can bomb ISIS, but dealing with the central fact: our 2003 invasion overturned the political sociology of Iraq.
What is Secretary of State John Kerry going to say when he greets (likely) Afghan VP Dostum? “Hey, Dostum, how are you treating prisoners?”
There was much more, on a youthful tangent — the above is the part I wanted to bring you.
**
We have focused on short-term tactical solutions for deep-seated problems.
— James Risen (@JamesRisen) September 12, 2014
Please forgive the typo: you know what he means.
