The Onion October 27, 2009 | Issue 45•44
U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort In Afghanistan
Hill by hill, U.S. forces tirelessly work toward the strategic goal of complete immobility.
In fact, many government officials now believe that the United States and its allies could be as little as six months away from their ultimate goal: the total quagmirification of Afghanistan.
"We've spent a lot of time and money fostering the turmoil and despair necessary to make this a sustaining quagmire, and we're not going to stop now," President Barack Obama said in a national address Monday night. "It won't be easy, but with enough tactical errors on the ground, shortsighted political strategies, and continued ignorance of our vast cultural differences, we could have a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012."
Added Obama, "Together, we can make Afghanistan into a nightmarish hell-scape Americans will regret for generations to come."
The U.S. plan to build a lasting quagmire in Afghanistan calls for the loss of at least 5,000 coalition troops, nearly 1,500 of whom have already been killed, and a wasted investment of nearly $1 trillion, a quarter of which has thus far been spent.
With more than 80 percent of the country currently under Taliban control, Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued that U.S. nation-dismantling efforts are actually proceeding ahead of schedule.
"We've made a complete mess of local institutions, and moving forward this substantial lack of infrastructure will be the cornerstone of our strategy to ensure long-term chaos in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region," said Gates, gesturing to a complex, 6-foot-tall wall map of what were either newly established al-Qaeda bases in Waziristan, tribal trade routes over the Hindu Kush, or perhaps U.S. military outposts of some kind. "I couldn't be happier with our progress. This place is a complete clusterfuck."
A number of Pentagon officials said they were proudly holding on to their false glimmer of hope for a victory that remains forever out of reach, and explained that waging a war that can only end in sorrow has validated all their efforts.
The U.S. effort in Afghanistan hasn't always looked so bleak. In 2004, when Afghanistan ratified a new constitution and directly elected a leader for the first time in its history, a number of government officials feared the quagmire would fail and perhaps even lead to relative peace and security. But American military and diplomatic initiatives to prop up the corrupt regime of Hamid Karzai paved the way for this year's utterly fraudulent presidential election, an event which gave the quagmire-building effort a much needed shot in the arm.
"Some say the war in Afghanistan is already a quagmire, being as it's gone on for eight years and the situation on the ground continues to rapidly deteriorate," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal. "But I know we can do better. There are still dozens of tribal allies to alienate, troop morale could sink even lower, to the point of mutiny, and by continuing to fire a bunch of missiles from unmanned predator drones we have the opportunity to scare the living shit out of every last civilian in the region."
Continued McChrystal, "If we play our cards right, the word 'Afghanistan' could soon replace the word 'Iraq' as the agreed-upon successor to the word 'Vietnam' in the American political lexicon."
The loose network of warlords who rule the Afghan countryside were also optimistic about quagmire-building efforts.
"Our nation is already impossibly fragmented, but I believe the United States has the ability to make things even worse here," said a local tribal leader, who asked to speak anonymously due to his constantly shifting alliances with the two sides. "Afghanistan has a proud, ancient tradition of quagmires: Soviet Russia, the British Empire, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan. These are big shoes to fill, but if anyone can do it, these foolish Americans can."
With President Karzai's government maintaining ties to known drug traffickers, and 68,000 U.S. soldiers struggling to police a harsh, challenging landscape, all the conditions for a multigenerational quagmire seem to be in place.
For many analysts, the question now is: How will Obama ensure the U.S. entanglement in the region remains permanent? By deploying more troops, by withdrawing them and leaving behind an unspeakable disaster, by increasing sympathy for the Taliban in nuclear-armed Pakistan? There are so many options on the table that many feel a quagmire is virtually guaranteed.
"We have so much to thank the Americans for," said Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a notorious warlord who will become vice president if Karzai wins a runoff election scheduled for Nov. 7. "Not only have they created a lawless environment that has allowed us to capture 90 percent of the opium market, but their heroin habits have made a few of us very rich."
"I love the Americans and I hope they stay for many years," he added. "Many, many, many, many years."
***
Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools
By SAM DILLON
NY Times: October 29, 2009
academic proficiency standards in recent years, a step that helps schools
stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind law. But lowering
standards also confuses parents about how children's achievement compares
with those in other states and countries.
The study, released Thursday, was the first by the federal Department of
Education's research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and
state tests to analyze whether states had changed their testing standards.
It found that 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- or
eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007. Three states, Maine,
Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade
levels, the study said.
Eight states increased the rigor of their standards in one or both subjects
and grades. Some states raised standards in one subject but lowered them in
another, including New York, which raised the rigor of its fourth-grade-math
standard but lowered the standard in eighth-grade reading, the study said.
"Over all, standards were more likely to be lower than higher," in 2007,
compared with the earlier year, said Peggy G. Carr, an associate
commissioner at the department.
Under the No Child law, signed in 2002, all schools must bring 100 percent
of students to the proficient level on states' reading and math tests by
2014, and schools that fall short of rising annual targets face sanctions.
In California, for instance, elementary schools must raise the percentage of
students scoring above the proficient level by 11 percentage points every
year from now through 2014.
Facing this challenge, the study found that some states had been redefining
proficiency down, allowing a lower score on a state test to qualify as
proficient.
"At a time when we should be raising standards to compete in the global
economy, more states are lowering the bar than raising it," Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan said in a statement. "We're lying to our children."
The 15 states that lowered one or more standards were Delaware, Georgia,
Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Eight that raised
one or more standards were Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New
York, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Louis Fabrizio, a director at the North Carolina Department of Public
Instruction, said that under the No Child law, states face a dilemma. "When
you set standards, do you want to show success under N.C.L.B. by having
higher percentages of students at proficiency, in which case you'll set
lower standards?" Mr. Fabrizio asked. "Or do you want to do the right thing
for kids, by setting them higher so they're comparable with our global
competitors?"
In the study, researchers compared the results of state tests and the
National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2005 and 2007, identifying a
score on the national assessment that was equivalent to each state's
definition of proficiency.
The study found wide variation among states, with standards highest in
Massachusetts and South Carolina. Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee had
standards that were among the lowest.
Forty-eight states are working cooperatively to create common academic
standards. Authorities in Texas and Alaska declined to join the effort.
Russ Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said it was
unlikely that the effort would soon produce a nationwide system that would
allow parents and employers to easily compare test results from state to
state, partly, he said, because "states would still have to agree on a
common test."
"And that's heavy lifting," Mr. Whitehurst said.
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