Unidentified Defense Contractor: Drop More Bombs

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an incredibly incendiary op-ed written by Lara M. Dadkhah, a "defense analyst" who argues that superior fire power is the key to defeating the Taliban.  Condescendingly assailing the very idea behind public diplomacy and the need for winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, Dadkhah blames the military for putting troops' lives in danger by avoiding offensive attacks that would lead to the loss of innocent Afghan lives.

"General McChrystal's directive was well intentioned," she writes, "but the lofty ideal at its heart is a lie, and an immoral one at that, because it pretends that war can be fair or humane." Dadkhah's worldview - which considers innocent Afghans no more than pitiless obstacles to victory and views those who believe that we should avoid such death and destruction as the immoral ones - is unabashedly reckless and violent.

She writes:

American and NATO military leaders - worried by Taliban propaganda claiming that air strikes have killed an inordinate number of civilians, and persuaded by "hearts and minds" enthusiasts that the key to winning the war is the Afghan population's goodwill - have largely relinquished the strategic advantage of American air dominance.

[...]

There is also little to indicate that the "hearts and minds" campaign has resulted in the population's cooperation, especially in the all-important area of human intelligence. Afghans can be expected to cooperate with American forces only if they feel safe to do so - when we take permanent control of an area. Obviously, this involves defeating the enemy.

She adds, "While I am employed by a defense consulting company, my research and opinions on air support are my own."  A defense consultant, whose clients directly benefit from war, argues for the increased use of bombs and for a disregard for public diplomacy while reminding us that these thoughtless opinions are hers and hers alone.  But the mystery remains.  Who is Lara M. Dadkhah and why is she in the New York Times?  As Glenn Greenwald put it:

What bizarre behavior from the NYT:  it publishes an extremist, repellent Op-Ed calling, in essence, for the deaths of more innocent Afghans and accusing the Obama administration of sacrificing the lives of American troops due to excessive concern about civilians, all while providing basically no information about the author and allowing her vaguely to refer to a "defense consulting company" for whom she works while concealing its identity.  There's no way to assess her credentials, her expertise, her employment, her motives, her possible conflicts -- nothing.

This much we know. Dadkhah appears to be from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She graduated in 2009 with a graduate degree from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service.  Other than that, she remains a mystery. 

The New York Times seems to have guidelines against publishing these sort mysterious pieces and it will be interesting to see how they respond to the public anger over this.  Robert Naiman, policy director at Just Foreign Policy writes that the newspaper's "editors owe the public an explanation."