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Critic of War Effort Does His Homework, Up Close
NEWPORT, R.I.
No armchair general here: Bing West has climbed mountains in Afghanistan with American combat troops, watched rocket-propelled grenades streak over his head and come close to dying of cholera. At a lean and flinty 70, he can dodge bullets along with the 20-year-olds he accompanies on infantry foot patrols, although he admits he does it by leaving the body armor behind — an eye-popping risk — and wearing a Boston Red Sox cap instead of a helmet.
He can think of no better life.
“If I wasn’t around, he’d never come home, he’d just stay over there,” said his wife, Betsy West.
“Well, I’d come home occasionally,” Mr. West replied.
Mr. West was in fact home on Rhode Island Sound the other day, in between trips to Afghanistan, to talk about his book “The Wrong War,” which has landed at just the wrong time for the White House and Pentagon. In the book, subtitled “Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan,” Mr. West passionately defends the military, but argues that the United States is burning billions of dollars trying to nation-build in Central Asia.
He flatly says that the counterinsurgency strategy behind the war — trying to win over the Afghans by protecting them from the Taliban and building roads, schools and civil institutions — is a failure.
“The question isn’t what the Marines or the Army do, the question is, why are they doing it, and what’s the end state?” Mr. West said. “My objection is, they’ve stayed to become the government.”
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Mr. West is yet another headache in the West Wing, although the Obama administration is doing its best to ignore him. The White House had no comment on “The Wrong War,” nor did the military’s joint staff. The Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, would say only that the book, which ends with events last fall, “does not reflect the current state of play in Afghanistan.”
Mr. West, whose book has received stellar reviews, would be easier to dismiss were it not for his pedigree: assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and author of “The Village,” a war classic for 40 years on the Marine Corps’ reading list, about 15 Americans — 7 died — who trained Vietnamese farmers to defend their hamlets against the Vietcong.
Mr. West has written three recent books on Iraq, the result of 20 months embedded with American troops. He began reporting in Afghanistan in 2008 and is now following a Marine platoon in Sangin, in Helmand Province, one of the bloodiest spots of the war.
In Mr. West’s view, counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is a feel-good, liberal theology that is turning the United States military into the Peace Corps and undermining its “core competency” — violence.
He accuses Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of “political drivel” for repeatedly saying that the military cannot kill its way to victory. Instead Mr. West evokes a view similar to that of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and argues that the United States should reduce its footprint to 50,000 troops, focus on obliterating the Taliban, send small numbers of American advisers into combat with the Afghans and stop throwing money at a feckless, corrupt government.
NEWPORT, R.I.
No armchair general here: Bing West has climbed mountains in Afghanistan with American combat troops, watched rocket-propelled grenades streak over his head and come close to dying of cholera. At a lean and flinty 70, he can dodge bullets along with the 20-year-olds he accompanies on infantry foot patrols, although he admits he does it by leaving the body armor behind — an eye-popping risk — and wearing a Boston Red Sox cap instead of a helmet.
He can think of no better life.
“If I wasn’t around, he’d never come home, he’d just stay over there,” said his wife, Betsy West.
“Well, I’d come home occasionally,” Mr. West replied.
Mr. West was in fact home on Rhode Island Sound the other day, in between trips to Afghanistan, to talk about his book “The Wrong War,” which has landed at just the wrong time for the White House and Pentagon. In the book, subtitled “Grit, Strategy and the Way Out of Afghanistan,” Mr. West passionately defends the military, but argues that the United States is burning billions of dollars trying to nation-build in Central Asia.
He flatly says that the counterinsurgency strategy behind the war — trying to win over the Afghans by protecting them from the Taliban and building roads, schools and civil institutions — is a failure.
“The question isn’t what the Marines or the Army do, the question is, why are they doing it, and what’s the end state?” Mr. West said. “My objection is, they’ve stayed to become the government.”
...
Mr. West is yet another headache in the West Wing, although the Obama administration is doing its best to ignore him. The White House had no comment on “The Wrong War,” nor did the military’s joint staff. The Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, would say only that the book, which ends with events last fall, “does not reflect the current state of play in Afghanistan.”
Mr. West, whose book has received stellar reviews, would be easier to dismiss were it not for his pedigree: assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, Marine infantry officer in Vietnam and author of “The Village,” a war classic for 40 years on the Marine Corps’ reading list, about 15 Americans — 7 died — who trained Vietnamese farmers to defend their hamlets against the Vietcong.
Mr. West has written three recent books on Iraq, the result of 20 months embedded with American troops. He began reporting in Afghanistan in 2008 and is now following a Marine platoon in Sangin, in Helmand Province, one of the bloodiest spots of the war.
In Mr. West’s view, counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is a feel-good, liberal theology that is turning the United States military into the Peace Corps and undermining its “core competency” — violence.
He accuses Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of “political drivel” for repeatedly saying that the military cannot kill its way to victory. Instead Mr. West evokes a view similar to that of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and argues that the United States should reduce its footprint to 50,000 troops, focus on obliterating the Taliban, send small numbers of American advisers into combat with the Afghans and stop throwing money at a feckless, corrupt government.
I think it was plausible we could try to set up a government in Iraq, where the main challenge was sectarian violence between two, maybe three groups. Afghanistan might as well be forty different nations for all the love they feel for each other. But this guy makes a good point. Our troops are really best at one thing: shooting people and blowing stuff up. I wouldn't have it any other way, either. That's what they're for.
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