This week, breaking coverage by the New York Times of a three month old Afghanistan story interrupted eulogies to the passing of the blog age just long enough for BuzzFeed to explain Matthew Rosenberg’s reporting in seven GIFs.
Per the Times, General John F. Campbell, the American commander of all foreign forces in Afghanistan, doesn’t want us to know how things are going in the graveyard of common sense. Which means we won’t know how the money gets spent anymore. But what he’s hiding isn’t money, it’s people. I had some thoughts on that for Vice News:
Campbell doesn’t care if people know how much America spent on literacy training, or how many planes are in the Afghan air force. What he cares about is people knowing that the army that’s supposedly taking over for the US is disappearing. It’s impossible for the ANA to miss troop strength goals this badly and survive.
And, as armies and their generals do, looks like someone’s changed their mind.
A spokesman for the U.S. force said in a statement: “A large volume of the data requested by SIGAR, when viewed alone, is suitable for public release.
“USFOR-A has since gone back and separated data releasable to the public from classified ANSF readiness data based on the SIGAR’s request,” the spokesman said.
Stay tuned for that scintillating update. Until next time, stay on that sunny side!