The war grinds on

The hope that yesterday’s release of thousands of documents on the Afghanistan war, documents that cast our misguided effort there into much starker relief than before, would alter policy proved very quickly to be baseless. Congress voted, as it has since the beginning of the war, to approve supplemental war funding, ensuring that the war will continue.

The revelations in the Wikileaks papers — described briefly here and here by The New York Times — should have been as damaging as those contained in the Pentagon Papers If documents describing a corrupt Pakistani intelligence service that had ties to the Taliban, failures on the ground and a sketchy rationale behind the war did not temper Congress and the administration’s commitment to the war, then I’m not sure what can.

At least Rush Holt, Frank Pallone and Donald Payne voted against the supplemental — but what about the other 10 members of the Congressional delegation?

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet