Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe: In Afghanistan, the Dam Breaks

The news just keeps getting worse in Afghanistan for the United States. Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan project has warned for years that the premises of a counterinsurgency there were unrealistic and unworkable, and the ability of a handful of bad actors to completely seize control of the narrative with atrocious actions validates our warnings. The "hearts and minds" effort has completely melted down over the past few weeks, illustrating once again that this war isn't making us safer and it's not worth the costs.

Yesterday, the Taliban suspended talks with the U.S. in Qatardue to the U.S.'s failure to follow through on releasing five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay. They also balked at the U.S.'s demand that the Taliban engage with the Karzai government, calling such a move "pointless." Karzai, for his part, is now demanding that U.S. troops get out -- now -- of Afghan rural areas and stay on their bases, likely in response to the butchering of 16 civilians by a U.S. military member in Kandahar.

This isn't your run-of-the-mill bad news, either:

"I'm really shocked, these are two pieces of very bad news," said one senior western diplomat in Kabul. "It's probably the bleakest day of my time here in Afghanistan."

What you are seeing is the latest of any number of indicators over the last few months that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is in total collapse. huffingtonpost

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Comment by ray lerwill on March 17, 2012 at 10:38am: 15 to 20 soldiers DID this TERRORISM!!!!!

Comment by ray lerwill on March 17, 2012 at 10:45am: It wasn't just one tool that Killed 9 children,4 men, 3 woman in 2 different villages according to the tribal leaders, elders, and the families that were their at the time

Comment by ray lerwill on March 17, 2012 at 10:46am: approved by WHO??????

Comment by gone fishing on March 17, 2012 at 1:02pm: Each member has the option to approve comments on their own post Ray. On this occasion, it was done in error and I am trying to figure out how to turn it off.