Thursday, July 02, 2009

Ok, why the hell isn't this being reported LOUD in the news?

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A U.S. soldier has been captured by militants in Afghanistan, the U.S. military and the Taliban said Thursday.

A soldier mans a weapon at the rear of a U.S. Army helicopter over Afghanistan in May.

The unidentified soldier has been missing since Tuesday. U.S. forces are exhausting all resources to find the soldier, the military said
.
And this is not big news why?

Oh, maybe it's got something to do with this:
The news out of Afghanistan yesterday was bookended by a couple of Washington Post reports.

Bob Woodward on the ground at Camp Leatherneck reported this morning in an article ridiculously headlined, Preventing Another Iraq/US Says Key to Success in Afghanistan: Economic, Not Military, that the Obama admin considers it a “new era.”

The headline is not Woodward’s fault, except to the extent he buried and obfuscated his lede. He reports after the jump that National Security Advisor James L. Jones briefed commanders on the ground that there won’t be more troops, that requests for more troops will prompt a “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” response in the Oval Office.

That’s your lede, Bob. There’s your hed, Washington Post copy desk. Obama to Troops: “WTF?”

We can dicker if you like about whether he actually said that or not. But the president’s national security advisor only voiced in military slang what the president himself more formally enunciated with the unveiling of his Afghan strategy some months ago, when he indicated he didn’t want to be a wartime president. He liked the idea of running some counterterrorism ops and buying his way out of this one instead. Put another way, ”WTF?” (bold mine)

Here’s the exchange. Every time I read it, it’s more astonishing, as Woodward describes a briefing in Camp Leatherneck:
...
Nicholson and his colonels — all or nearly all veterans of Iraq — seemed to blanch at the unambiguous message that this might be all the troops they were going to get.

You really need to read this. And consider just how "We need to win in Afghanistan!" seems to actually mean "Without me actually having to deal with this messy war stuff."

2 comments:

Arthur said...

"And this is not big news why?"

Well, you do know that a famous pedophile died recently, right?

And I seriously doubt the armed forces paid the Washington Post* enough cash to get White House access in the first place.

*http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/02/wapo-a-wapimp

Firehand said...

Maybe that's it. God knows, considering later news, The One and his staff don't give a crap; and if they don't, much of the media sure won't.