Spencer Ackerman in The Washington Independent: Progressives Launch Attack on Afghanistan

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Progressives Launch Attack on Afghanistan
Group of Liberals Question Ramping Up Forces
By Spencer Ackerman

Even before President Barack Obama took the oath of office Tuesday, a coalition of progressives assembled to steer him away from his long-discussed plans to increase the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan by nearly 30,000.

Starting last week, a website called Get Afghanistan Right began publishing critiques of escalation in Afghanistan, arguing that sending more troops to Afghanistan would be an expensive, bloody and ineffective approach to a war that has suffered from a lack of overall strategy. The progressives at the helm of the effort — Alex Thurston and Jason Rosenbaum of the liberal blog The Seminal; filmmaker Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films; and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation magazine — contend that their first priority in writing against escalation is to dispel the perception that a consensus exists in the country on behalf of increased troop deployments. Though in its early stages, the effort signals two broader challenges that the Obama administration will face: finding a clear and viable strategy for a war that has grown more chaotic seven years after it began; and diminished progressive patience for the Afghanistan war.

“We need at a minimum to show that not everyone agrees” with an escalation, said Greenwald, the producer of popular progressive documentaries like “Outfoxed” and a prolific viral-video creator. “We don’t need to have a solution, have an answer, or have a ten-point program, but we do have to show that many people don’t agree, and encourage others to start asking questions, which I believe the smart people in the Obama administration will do.”

The effort so far focuses on fostering a debate within progressive circles before talking to a broader and more ideologically diverse audience. It may provide a test as to how deep American support is for an Afghanistan war that has suffered from years of policy, media and public neglect — something the Obama administration will have no choice but to confront.

For years, many progressives have argued that the real war on terrorism is in Afghanistan as a rhetorical bludgeon to argue against the Iraq war, and relatively few criticized Obama’s plans for escalation. Thurston was one of those few, arguing during the height of the general election that Obama’s position on Afghanistan was unworkable. “Come November 5th,” he wrote on his blog, “we’re going to need to pivot on Afghanistan: we’re going to need an honest debate about facts in the present, not outdated fantasies about what could have been in 2002, or even 2007.”

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http://washingtonindependent.com/27073/progressives-on-afghanistan