Who is Really to Blame?

I read an op-ed, by Sarah Chayes in the NYT today and found it fascinating. It's amazing how we can sometimes forget exactly how events actually unfolded, years later.

She argues that NATO is not the problem in Afghanistan, but that the real problems, are the US troops and the US Government, then and now.

While I still think we do have some problems with NATO, namely troop commitment, this does provide some perspective. It also perhaps explains why Martin agreed to the mission.

But not until 2005, when it was clear that the United States was bogged down in Iraq and lacked sufficient resources to fight on two fronts, did Washington belatedly turn to NATO to take the Afghan south off its hands. And then it misrepresented the situation our allies would find there. NATO was basically sold a beefed-up peacekeeping mission.

It does not however explain why Harper extended the mission after we knew it was going badly.