Bob Herbert at the NY Times had an impassioned op-ed last week on the insanity of our forces staying in Afghanistan even as all indications note that we're not making any progress in that country. He calls it "reading from a lunatic's manual."

War is a meat grinder for service members and their families. It grinds people up without mercy, killing them and inflicting the worst kinds of wounds imaginable, physical and psychological. The Pentagon is trying to cope with the surge in suicides, but it is holding a bad hand: the desperate shortage of troops has forced military officials to lower the bar for enlistment, thus letting in people whose drug and alcohol abuse or other behavioral problems would previously have kept them out. And the multiple deployments (four, five and six tours in the war zones) have jacked up stress levels to the point where many just can’t take it.

The G.I.’s have fought valiantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands have died and many, many more have suffered. But the wars have been conducted as if their leaders had been reading from a lunatic’s manual. This is not Germany or Japan or the old Soviet Union that we’re fighting. But after nearly a decade, neither war has been won and there is no prospect of winning.

And speaking of a lunatic's manual, here's Sven Ortmann to talk about FM 3-24, the Army's counterinsurgency manual, and its waning influence on current operations.

The tragedy is probably that the new COIN theory is likely a fair weather theory. It works if the population is willing to allow it to work. It's nothing that you can enforce.

The proper time for the new COIN theory's application in Iraq was probably 2003 and for its application in Afghanistan was probably 2002-2004. The populations were probably ready to cooperate as envisaged by the COIN theory at that time.

War sows much hate and mistrust. The environment got tainted too much and COIN was obviously unable to deliver convincing results under such conditions.

Given the current trend of things in Afghanistan, if President Obama and SecDef Gates is really serious about reclaiming "efficiencies" in defense spending, maybe they ought to think a little harder about the billions spent every month in that country, not to mention the wisdom of retaining 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Sven appropriately quotes Winston Churchill: "The Americans will always do the right thing ... after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Gee, ya think? Everyone I know is depressed - depressed because they don't have a job, depressed because they might lose the one they have, or depressed because they're stuck in a job they hate for the benefits:

WASHINGTON - Workplace suicides surged 28 percent last year, the Labor Department said Thursday, as anxious workers dealt with a struggling economy and watched colleagues depart in a rash of layoffs.

At the same time, the agency’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said the total number of workers who died on the job from any cause fell by 10 percent.

The 5,071 workplace fatalities recorded in 2008 was the lowest number since the agency began tracking the data in 1992. That number includes 251 suicides, the highest number since official reporting began.

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Labor officials did not seek to explain the sudden rise in workplace suicides. A BLS spokesman said the agency plans to research it more extensively.

The agency says economic factors could be responsible for the overall decline in fatalities. Workers on average worked 1 percent fewer hours last year and the construction industry — which usually accounts for a major share of accidental workplace deaths — posted even larger declines in employment or hours worked.

Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said the numbers suggest the struggling economy taking a toll on worker morale.

“Those who are at places where there have been substantial layoffs are trying to cope with survivor’s guilt,” Chaison said. “I also think there’s tremendous anxiety in the American workplace. It’s not just being anxious, its being depressed.”

The Left Coaster: The Bush administration's systematic destruction of the US military continues.

Consortiumblog: VA debated PR plan on Vets' suicides

Orcinus: Issues about the FLDS we're not discussing

Just because BUSHCO strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions, doesn't mean those same students are unfit to die in Iraq.

collateral news: A look at the origin of the modern state secrets priviliege, its illegitimate uses, and the threat it poses to an open society

Welshman: A disenchanted ex-Conservapedian speaks