I usually like to highlight little-noticed news items. Today we have big news about Afghanistan that’s everywhere, and probably everyone has seen it– but I don’t want to feel like I’m ignoring it.

First, October 2009 is officially the deadliest month in Afghanistan for the United States since our invasion eight years ago. The latest deaths bring to 55 the total number of American troops killed this month. One of them was Kimble A. Han, 30, of Lehi. The previous monthly record was last August, when 51 U.S. soldiers died.

Second, we’re told that President Obama will announce his reassessment of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy within two weeks. Probably he’ll announce plans to escalate the war.

Third, we learned that a U.S. diplomat has resigned in order to speak out against the Obama administration’s misplaced emphasis on counterinsurgency.

From Glenn Greenwald:

Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain with combat experience in Iraq, resigned last month from his position with the Foreign Service, where he was the the senior U.S. civilian in the Taliban-dominated Southern Afghanistan province of Zabul, because he became convinced that our war in that country will not only inevitably fail, but is fueling the very insurgency we are trying to defeat. Hoh’s resignation is remarkable because it entails the sort of career sacrifice in the name of principle that has been so rare over the last decade, but even more so because of the extraordinary four-page letter (PDF) he wrote explaining his reasoning.

Matt Yglesias:

For our case in Afghanistan I think that the key point is that there needs to be some kind of horizon on our presence… I don’t know if that means a chronologically-bound timetable or a political checklist or what, but it’s got to be something. What you don’t want is to get in the situation of saying, basically, that we can’t leave Afghanistan until first we kill everyone who wants us to leave Afghanistan. For a while our Iraq policy was stuck in that loop, and I worry that our Afghanistan policy may veer in that direction.

Glenn Greenwald:

How long are we going to continue to do this? We invade and occupy a country, and then label as “insurgents” or even “terrorists” the people in that country who fight against our invasion and occupation. With the most circular logic imaginable, we then insist that we must remain in order to defeat the “insurgents” and “terrorists” — largely composed of people whose only cause for fighting is our presence in their country. All the while, we clearly exacerbate the very problem we are allegedly attempting to address — Terrorism — by predictably and inevitably increasing anti-American anger and hatred through our occupation, which, no matter the strategy, inevitably entails our killing innocent civilians.

Take action: Write your Member of Congress in support of Rep. Barbara Lee’s bill (H.R. 3699) to prohibit escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and Rep. Jim McGovern’s resolution (H.R. 2404) calling on the defense secretary to outline an exit strategy.

UPDATE: Seymour Hersh explains Obama’s Pentagon problem:

“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.

“If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The journalist criticized the president for “letting the military do that,” and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.

“He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency.”