I have to say I am shocked to hear Rahm Emanuel making sense. He suggested on the Sunday shows today that the Obama administration is looking more closely at the whole Afghanistan occupation than ever before – and is willing to take more time deliberating what comes next.

The acknowledgement that there is not a legitimate government in Afghanistan to partner with in the latest episode of COINdistas Go Wild is certainly a step in the right direction but an even deeper look is needed.

That look might begin with the report from Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, former liaison officer between the Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan (CFC-A) and the Central Command. Davis’ report is based on both his own experience in Afghanistan and the thoughts of fellow officers who have also served there. Gareth Porter brought the report to public attention and points out that Davis “argues that it is already too late for US forces to defeat the insurgency:”

“Many experts in and from Afghanistan warn that our presence over the past eight years has already hardened a meaningful percentage of the population into viewing the United States as an army of occupation which should be opposed and resisted,” writes Davis.

Providing the additional 40,000 troops that Gen McChrystal reportedly requested “is almost certain to further exacerbate” that problem, he warns.

You can download the report here.

Tom Englehardt of Tom Dispatch’s latest post is an even clearer warning to Obama and his circle as they reconsider Afghanistan:

Let me suggest just one lesson that seems to be on no one else’s mind at a moment when a key “option” being offered in Washington — especially by Democrats not eager to see tens of thousands more U.S. troops heading Afghanistan-wards — is to arm and “train” ever more thousands of Afghans into a vast army and police security force for a government that hardly exists. Based on the last three decades in the region, don’t you think that we should pause and consider who exactly we may be arming and who exactly we may be supporting, and whether, given those 30 years of history, we have the slightest idea what we’re doing?

Englehardt concludes, after a superb review of our experiences since the beginning of “the Long War:”

There is a record here. It’s not a pretty one. It’s not a smart one. Someone should take it into account before we plunge in and arm our future enemies one more time.

Of course, the real voices we should listen to on Afghanistan are those of the people who we claim to be liberating. This week another two Afghan civilians died at our hands:

GHAZNI, Afghanistan – An Afghan woman and a child were killed in a joint NATO-Afghan operation against insurgents in Afghanistan on Friday, sparking a protest by a group of angry villagers…

Reuters television images from the scene showed two bodies including that of a child lying on the floor of a house as a group of Afghans huddled together and cried over the bodies.

A group of 100 angry Afghans could be seen later in the day marching through a nearby village shouting “Death to America” and “Death to (President) Hamid Karzai”.

An earlier TomDispatch by William Astore, reminded us in a discussion of the prescient views of Norman Mailer during our Vietnam COIN venture and this lesson is the most important one that I hope the Obama administration will consider:

As Mailer put it, with a different twist: “Bombing a country at the same time you are offering it aid is as morally repulsive as beating up a kid in an alley and stopping to ask for a kiss.”