{"id":39875,"date":"2018-10-30T06:13:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T11:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39875"},"modified":"2018-10-30T06:13:04","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T11:13:04","slug":"tomgram-william-astore-the-pentagon-has-won-the-war-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39875","title":{"rendered":"Tomgram: William Astore, The Pentagon Has Won the War that Matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomgram: William Astore, The Pentagon Has Won the War that Matters<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

In June, Austin \u201cScott\u201d Miller, the special-ops general chosen to be the 17th U.S. commander in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Like so many<\/a> of the generals who had preceded him, he suggested that he saw evidence of \u201cprogress<\/a>\u201d in the Afghan war, even if he refused to \u201cguarantee you a timeline or an end date.\u201d Smart move, general!<\/p>\n

As it happens, just over a week ago, he got a dose, up close and personal, of what the Afghan version of \u201cprogress\u201d really means. He was visiting key American allies in the southern province of Kandahar when the \u201cinsider\u201d attack<\/a> of all insider<\/a> attacks occurred. In the sort of event that\u2019s been going on<\/a> since at least 2010, an ostensible ally, in this case a local member of the Afghan security forces who had evidently joined the Taliban, turned his gun<\/a> on Kandahar\u2019s chief of police (a crucial powerbroker in the region), the local intelligence chief, and the provincial governor, killing<\/a> the first two and wounding the third. In the process, he ensured that, with local leadership literally down the tubes, elections in Kandahar would be postponed<\/a> for at least a week. Three Americans, including a brigadier general<\/a>, were also wounded in the attack.\u00a0 (In 2014, an American major general was killed<\/a> in just such an insider strike.)\u00a0 In one of the rarest acts for an American commander in memory, General Miller reportedly drew<\/a> his sidearm as the bullets began to fly, but was himself untouched. Still, it was a striking reminder that, 17 years after<\/a> the U.S. invaded that country, the Taliban are again riding high and represent the only forces making \u201cprogress\u201d or \u201cturning corners<\/a>\u201d in that country.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomgram: William Astore, The Pentagon Has Won the War that Matters In June, Austin \u201cScott\u201d Miller, the special-ops general chosen to be the 17th U.S. commander in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Like so many of the generals who had preceded him, he suggested that he saw evidence of \u201cprogress\u201d in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22675,620,6463,6462,827,862,22674],"class_list":["post-39875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-austin-scott-miller","tag-pentagon","tag-tom-dispatch","tag-tomgram","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-william-astore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39876,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39875\/revisions\/39876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}