Spencer Ackerman, responding to this NY Times article about the military’s frustration with the slow pace of escalation in Afghanistan:
Protracted wars fought by democracies ultimately last only until publics decide they ought to. I doubt that any military officer would disagree with that proposition, no matter his or her perspective on a given war. But I’ve heard people in the broader defense community dismiss, diminish or deride public opinion, and particularly poll figures, in a way that embraces the pat assumption that public opinion is something to be worked around, not grappled with. At a counterinsurgency conference sponsored by Marine Corps University recently, the author and Marine Vietnam veteran Bing West unfavorably compared Obama’s focus on health-care reform with his focus on Afghanistan. West might not have meant it this way, but 47 million Americans and approximately 30 million American citizens without health insurance is not something to diminish, whatever the requirements of a war. Indeed, it’s ultimately counterproductive for elements of the military community to ask for a commitment to Afghanistan that’s just plainly unsustainable, politically. And this seems to be something the defense community needs to grapple with further.
Of course this is understandable to an extent; it is the military’s job to worry about fighting wars, and the politician’s job to worry that public support exist to fight wars. But it does seem that there are blinders on when Gen. McChrystal can go on and on about how crucial public opinion is in Afghanistan, but nobody seems to think for a moment how crucial public opinion might be in America. Let me tell you, the Afghans could support our presence 10 to 1 and it won’t mean a thing if numbers like this continue to worsen.