On The Front Lines With Frontline

Exum highly recommends the newest PBS doc:

John Nagl, Bill Mayville and Stan McChrystal make a good argument for a counterinsurgency campaign, while Andrew Bacevich and an especially pithy Celeste Ward make a good argument against pursuing such a campaign. All sides, in other words, acquit themselves rather well. All sides, that is, save for the Pakistani officials. An American watching this documentary might be of two minds as to whether or not we should pursue a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, but he or she will also be of two minds as to why we continue to send so much money and other resources to a country whose leaders are either lying or delusional about the presence of anti-Government of Afghanistan insurgent groups -- such as the Quetta Shura Taliban and the Haqqani Network -- in Pakistan. The judgment of the documentary's producers seems to be that Pakistan is more an enemy of the United States than an ally.