Copter crash sends a message

Opinion: August 12, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Philadelphia Inquirer: The deaths of 30 Americans, 22 of them highly trained Navy SEALs, in a fiery helicopter crash Saturday in Afghanistan has joltingly reminded this country that its debt crisis isn’t the only problem seeking an elusive solution.

Multiple deaths of this magnitude have become a rarity in the Afghanistan war, which allows most Americans to go about their days without thinking much about the fight unless they know someone among the deployed U.S. troops.

Petty Officer First Class Michael J. Strange was constantly on the minds of his family and friends. Unfortunately, the Philadelphia native was one of the SEALs killed when their Chinook went down. “He wasn’t supposed to die this young,” Elizabeth Strange said of her 25-year-old son.

The crash has reinvigorated discussion of the best course to continue the war — counterinsurgency or counterterrorism.

Former Afghanistan commander Gen. David Petraeus, who will soon become the head of the CIA, favored the three-pronged counterinsurgency tactics that proved successful for him in Iraq — protect the people, bolster the government, build up the police and army.

But Petraeus admits such an effort is hard and takes time, and after 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan, the American public has about run out of patience to stay that course. Especially when the Afghan government, which is as inept as it is corrupt, seems unlikely to ever engender the public confidence needed to make it self-supporting.

There has been speculation that Petraeus’ departure also signals a switch to a counterrorism approach in which known terrorist havens are attacked in raids such as the one that took out al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and the one in which the Chinook was apparently hit. Critics of counterterrorism argue that just going after the Taliban leaves in place the economic, political, and social conditions that spawned the group.

Whichever strategy can best produce results is the way to go.