Pentagon Slams ‘Too Negative’ View on Afghan War

Gen. Petraeus Insists War Going Positively

Pentagon officials are reacting with anger today to concerns about the disastrous state of the Afghan War, claiming that the war was on “the right path” and that Congress was being “too negative” about the conflict.

Several extremely high profile failures, including the public falling out with the Karzai government and the inability to successfully occupy the fictional city of Marjah or install a Karzai-backed government there, has many in Congress expressing concern about the overall war strategy.

But Gen. David Petraeus insists that the war is “like a roller coaster” and that the conflict is going in an overall positive direction, and then claimed that the war has in general gone successfully.

Yet this perpetual optimism is likely to be a tough pill to swallow, particularly coming less than a week after the announcement that the long-promised Kandahar invasion was being delayed indefinitely because, despite spending several months telegraphing the offensive, most of the locals still don’t support the move.

Indeed, Pentagon officials too were openly expressing concern about the direction of the war just weeks ago, and little seems to have changed. The only difference, it seems, is that the Pentagon is looking to press a $33 billion “emergency” war funds bill out of Congress in the next few weeks.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.