Something felt wrong in my soul when General David Petraeus scampered onto the field during the Super Bowl's coin toss proceedings. Only later did it occur to me. No, I wasn't upset that he was being celebrated for killing invisible people of color in far off lands for the fictitious justification of freedom. Ok, I was; but that wasn't the whole story.
The contradiction between the increase in specialization in football and Petraeus' job is what struck me most. Petraeus is the head of U.S. Central Command, which puts him in charge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some NFL teams have a punter, a kicker for field goals, and a kicker for kickoffs. You have third down backs, pass-rushing linebackers, nickel and dime defense backs, and people who all they do is snap the ball on field goal attempts and punts. But when it comes to two wars, we got one guy.
The conditions, cultures, peoples, histories, and circumstances are profoundly different in Iraq and Afghanistan. The battle to be fought is different. The way the United States needs to relate to the people in the two countries is different. Afghanistan hasn't been occupied by a foreign force for a few thousand years. The country has fallen victim to an invasion, a civil war, and now another invasion in the last thirty years. The country's infrastructure is practically nil. The U.S. overthrew a religiously Sunni fundamentalist regime. After overcoming British colonialism, Iraq eventually saw a secular strongman take over the well-developed nation. Iraq featured a burgeoning middle class and a predominately Shiite population. Afghanistan has many different ethnic groups, but the largest are the Pashtuns. Iraqis are mostly Arab.
If there was ever a time for specialization it should be in dealing with the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And let's let one guy do all a team's kicking in the NFL. (International Affairs Edition)
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