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November 09, 2011

The Full(er) Truth
Posted by Michael Cohen


FullerEver since General Peter Fuller made some rather impolitic remarks complaining about Hamid Karzai's lack of appreciation for the US sacrifice in Afghanistan and for being "isolated from reality" there has been a feisty debate about whether he deserved to get fired and what it means for US policy in the region.

Let's get things out of the way early: Fuller made politically tone deaf comments that made it largely impossible for him to keep doing his job effectively. It was almost certainly the best move for General Allen to relieve him.

Nonetheless, Fuller has committed what I would call a "Kinsley gaffe" - in short he screwed up because he actually told the truth about the incompetence and duplicity of the Karzai regime and their unique incompatablity as a partner for the United States. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Fuller (or believe he is or isn't telling the truth) there can be little doubt that what he said reflects a dominant view held in both the US military and the civilian leadership.

One of the things that should have been obvious for quite some time in Afghanistan is that what we want Hamid Karzai to do in support of our counter-insurgency efforts simply is not possible. He is unable to deal with corruption in his midst; he is unable to sustain an Afghan government capable of providing basic services to the Afghan people; and he is unable to be an effective ally for the United States. And not only is he unable to do these things, it seems fairly obvious that he doesn't want to do them.

Fuller was wrong in the context of his job to say what he did - but any person who has followed what is happening in Afghanistan would understand that the basic tenor of Fuller's comment are correct. And as Carl Prine nicely points out, Fuller's mistake was refusing to tow the party line that obfuscates Karzai's limitations and their impact on the US mission in Afghanistan. 

For two years now the US military has been collectively presenting to the American people a sanitized and misleading story about what is happening in Afghanistan. Indeed, back in September Fernando Lujan, a Special Forces major in the US Army, published 800 words of empty platitudes, meaningless anecdotes and hoary calls to arms in the New York Times that told the American people the war in Afghanistan "can still be won." I'm willing to bet that if you privately asked most fighting men and women in Afghanistan if they believe this to be true they'd laugh in your face.

But my guess is that Lujan got a pat on the back for his op-ed glossing over the enormous challenges facing the US mission in Afghanistan with a feel-good story about American resilience. Fuller was honest about the challenges that he is facing in preparing the Afghan Army to take over security responsibilities and he got cashiered. Maybe it was right to let him go, but there's something very wrong with this picture.

My good friend Josh Foust argues that there was a simple solution for Fuller . . he simply could have said nothing or refused to answer the question directly. Of course this is true; but I find it to be something of a strange response - particularly from someone who understands all too well the extent to which the military is blatantly misleading the American people about the war in Afghanistan. (And it's not just the military; here's US Ambassador Ryan Crocker explaining that the US needs to be in Afghanistan because "this is where 9/11 came from.")

At what point does omission of the truth become just another form of lying? What is the message being sent by Fuller's canning (even if it was legitimate): that the US military must be complicit in a collective snow job about the war in Afghanistan?

In the end, it's hard to disagree with the view that Fuller deserved to be fired from a basic civil-military perspective. Still, perhaps the appropriate reaction to his dismissal should not be criticism of him for denigrating the tender sensibiliities of the Afghan government and Hamid Karzai (a leader who has no problem regularly denigrating the sacrifice of US troops that are dying and being maimed on behalf of his government) but rather bewilderment that publicly expressing the sentiments of the lion's share of US military and civilian policymakers dealing with Afghanistan is a fireable offense.

American blood and treasure is being expended on behalf of Hamid Karzai's regime (which in of itself is ridiculous) and yet somehow those in charge of this war must keep quiet about what an incompetent and useless leader he is. 

It's a lovely war, ain't it.

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Gen. Fuller's comments caused a bit of a stir, and on Friday General John Allen, the commander of ISAF forces in Afghanistan, fired him. In the five days since, a debate has erupted over whether Gen. Allen was correct in doing so, and whether Gen. Fuller is, in a sense, being punished for, as his supporters say, "telling the truth."

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