On Tuesday, US forces in Afghanistan released a propaganda push highlighting “progress” in the city of Herat as the beacon of how Afghanistan is moving toward peace and being able to defend itself. Look, in the photo you can see that you can actually buy popcorn on the streets of Herat! The next day, on Wednesday, a US helicopter killed two more civilians, including at least one child. The initial press release by ISAF on this attack was produced only in propaganda mode, bleating the death of a Haqqani network leader and making false claims about “protecting” civilians who unexpectedly appeared in the area while helicopters were attacking their target.

The Pentagon wants you to ignore some inconvenient facts about the failure of the escalation strategy in Afghanistan.

The latest Petraeus/Gates media tour is under way in preparation for the general’s testimony to Congress next week, and they’re trotting out the same, tired spin they’ve been using since McChrystal was replaced in disgrace last year.

Exclusive, on-the-ground interviews obtained by Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project confirm what U.S. and allied forces repeatedly denied: U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan killed dozens of people in the Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23.

Protests in the Surkhrod district of Nangarhar province of Afghanistan over a night raid Thursday night have left at least one protester dead at the hands of Afghan police. There is a very significant change in the primary press coverage of this event. In a reversal of the initial reporting after the Gardez raid which killed two pregnant women, reports from the New York Times, Reuters and BBC all lead with witness claims of civilian deaths and then move to NATO claims that only insurgents were killed in the raid.

As I noted earlier in the week, there is a growing realization that the previously heralded counterinsurgency (COIN) plan developed by General Stanley McChrystal for US efforts in Afghanistan is failing, both in our ability to clear areas of insurgents and in the ability of the Afghans to govern cleared areas. The huge budgetary impact of the COIN strategy is finally beginning to be discussed by the Pentagon, and as a result, plans are now being floated for “counterinsurgency light“. Sadly, it appears to me that these “improvements” are just as flawed as the underlying plan. In contrast, Osama bin Laden’s plan to bankrupt the US through drawing us into expensive and unwinnable wars is working just as he described it in 2004.

President Obama’s ineffective strategy is costing us billions of dollars and thousands of lives. Call Congress and tell them to support the McGovern bill to require an exit strategy.

For some time, I’ve been documenting the effort to present General Stanley McChrystal’s COIN strategy as a warm, fuzzy program of which we should be proud, instead of the reality of night raids that kill and imprison innocent civilians, fueling the anger of insurgents. My most recent find in that propaganda campaign is truly a sight to behold.

Despite a steady stream of warm, fuzzy stories about General Stanley McChrystal insisting that his COIN strategy is all about protecting civilians and that he spends a good portion of his time imparting this wisdom on the topic to troops, pointless killings of civilians continue.

Counterinsurgency that relies on night raids is a recipe for more outrage and violence in Afghanistan. This pattern of brutality, denial, outrage and revenge has to stop.

DOD now says it can’t find its own copy of the video.