US to ‘Stay the Course’ on Afghan Occupation

Panetta Insists War 'On the Right Path'

With the war in Afghanistan seemingly blowing up in their faces, top Obama Administration officials are as determined as ever to shrug off criticism and insist that things are going just swimmingly, no changes required.

So with President Karzai calling on NATO troops to be confined to base and the Taliban abandoning its negotiations in the wake of this weekend’s massacre, and the Afghan public, already livid over Quran burnings late last month seemingly as furious as is humanly possible now, the White House is once again insisting that the US is going to “stick to” its mission.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, fresh off Karzai’s demands in a news conference in Afghanistan, insisted that he is convinced the occupation is “on the right path” and that “the key right now is to stick to that path.

It’s hard to imagine how much worse the war could possibly get at this point, but the mission right now seems to be convincing everyone that these repeated disasters simply aren’t happening. Even British PM David Cameron, in the US for a state visit, is cheering the war as a success. One might doubt that he will be as cheerful about the situation when he returns home.

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.