afghanistan
I am not sure the news Sunday about U.S. negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan came as a surprise to many.
But it does seem to imply a heightened sense of urgency in dealing with a war heading toward a decade in length.
As I made my cross-country drive from Bowling Green, Ky., to St. John, Wash., during the Memorial Day weekend, flags flew in every town through which I passed, large and small.
And for the most part, folks went about their business of enjoying a day off, cooking out and watching the Indianapolis 500.
But a headline in Tuesday’s USA Today captured what I thought about a lot as I passed all those flags: “Don’t forget: We’re at war.”
The release of thousands of classified documents on WikiLeaks about the nine-year U.S. war in Afghanistan represents the contemporary equivalent of the Pentagon Papers in many ways.
- The documents have embarrassed both governments.
- An insider “whistleblower” put the documents in the website’s hands.
- The material contains a mix of information already made public and some that those who classify documents hoped would remain classified, such as covert operations aimed at high-ranking Taliban leaders and the number of civilian deaths.
Some like to discount comparisons between U.S. policy in the Vietnam War and the war in Afghanistan.
But a recent look at some presidential archives makes a good case for history repeating itself — and not in a good way.
I give a questionnaire each semester to my “Introduction to News Writing and Reporting” class to get to know students better.
“Who was your best teacher and why?” “What rumors have you heard about me?” “John Lennon or John Mayer?”
A few semesters back, I included this question: “What should happen to someone in this class who gets caught cheating?”
With the answers came the expected penalties such as a failing grade on the assignment, some kind of extra work involving ethical decision making and ousting the culprit from class.
