George Will wrote in his Afghanistan column the other day, “Mullen speaks of combating Afghanistan’s ‘culture of poverty.’” This has become a meme among conservative skeptics. Andy repeats it below. I’m sure this was an innocent mistake on Will’s part, but I think he distorted Mullen’s meaning. As far as I can tell, the quote comes from this Washington Times piece recounting the paper’s interview with Mullen. It seems pretty clear that the “culture of poverty” Mullen was referring to was the under-resourcing of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan–a big difference. Here is the full context of his remark:

…so you’ve got new a new strategy, new leaders, in a country that’s been very badly under-resourced in terms of our strategy for the last several years, and what I do see and have seen over the last two or three trips is something that I call a culture of poverty. And it isn’t just that we’ve under-resourced it– we’ve under-resourced it for a significant period of time so that–so that we’re not going to — you can’t just get it all well instantly. I liken it to somebody who has been starving for a significant period of time and all the sudden you put all the food they need in the world there — they’re just not going to come back overnight. So there’s a culture of poverty there which is very much a part of where we are in terms of resources and this isn’t just on the military side — this is on the civilian side. We now have a strategy that is a civilian-military campaign plan — a civilian-military strategy — and with Holbrooke in place, Eikenberry in place, McChrystal, Rodriquez, and I have taken my best people and given them to McChrystal. He literally has an open book or a blank check to get the best people we have there on the military side. Because this is the top priority: We’re at war.