Oh, the irony.
On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace.
In tonight’s season premiere, PBS’ FRONTLINE will air “Obama’s War,” a look at the quagmire that is Afghanistan.
The documentary includes an interview with Gen. Stanley McChrystal who reportedly wants the Nobel laureate to send as many as 40,000 80,000 more troops on top of the quiet surge of 13,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Eight years later, the world’s only superpower has not defeated the ragtag Taliban led by a one-eyed illiterate. As for why, McChrystal says it’s, well, complicated:
It’s complex. It’s hard. First off, the situation in Afghanistan is different than almost anywhere else, by terrain, by history, by culture.
Plus, the problem here has evolved. When we came in 2001, I think it was perceived as largely a counterterrorism problem. The Taliban started to come back, slowly come back from Pakistan and also stand up here slowly. So I think recognizing the rise in a true insurgency took a little bit of time.
And then of course we had other operations ongoing in Iraq, which took an awful lot of our capacity and attention at that time.
You can watch a preview of this unending mess online.
“Obama’s War” will air at 9 p.m. ET. To check your local listing, go here.
