They listen politely, but in the end, of course, basically the policy decision is made. What they would like is little advice on some small bit. I mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: it’s as though they come to you and they say, “We’re planning to drive our car off a cliff. Do we wear a seatbelt or not?” And we say, “Don’t drive your car off the cliff.” And they say, “No, no, no. That decision’s already made. The question is should we wear our seatbelts?” And you say, “Why by all means wear a seatbelt.” And they say, “Okay, we consulted with policy expert, Rory Stewart,” et cetera.
They listen politely, but in the end, of course, basically the policy decision is made. What they would like is little advice on some small bit. I mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: it’s as though they come to you and they say, “We’re planning to drive our car off a cliff. Do we wear a seatbelt or not?” And we say, “Don’t drive your car off the cliff.” And they say, “No, no, no. That decision’s already made. The question is should we wear our seatbelts?” And you say, “Why by all means wear a seatbelt.” And they say, “Okay, we consulted with policy expert, Rory Stewart,” et cetera.Rory Stewart, a British professor of human rights at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and an expert on Afghanistan, describing the experience of “being consulted” on the war by President Obama’s staff. (Via Jan Adams.)
Why is Obama plunging us deeper into an unwinnable war? He’s smarter than this. “Unhappily, the realities of the Afghanistan situation — and having a President who is capable of understanding them — are having next to no impact on the inertial forces of empire,” Jan writes, “Once involved, our elites believe the U.S. can and must prevail. Any Democrat must prove he’s not a wimp. Upholding the myth of U.S. capacity to shape the world to our elites’ liking must outweigh over any realistic assessment of national interest.”
As my boyfriend greeted me when he came home last night: “Honey, we’re fucked.”
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The Great American Cooking Project
Notes from others: