Time to Get Out of Afghanistan

[Skull Pilot]

washingtonpost.com

"Yesterday," reads the e-mail from Allen, a Marine in Afghanistan, "I gave blood because a Marine, while out on patrol, stepped on a [mine's] pressure plate and lost both legs." Then "another Marine with a bullet wound to the head was brought in. Both Marines died this morning."

"I'm sorry about the drama," writes Allen, an enthusiastic infantryman willing to die "so that each of you may grow old." He says: "I put everything in God's hands." And: "Semper Fi!"

Allen and others of America's finest are also in Washington's hands. This city should keep faith with them by rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in Afghanistan, where, says the Dutch commander of coalition forces in a southern province, walking through the region is "like walking through the Old Testament."

U.S. strategy -- protecting the population -- is increasingly troop-intensive while Americans are increasingly impatient about "deteriorating" (says Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) conditions. The war already is nearly 50 percent longer than the combined U.S. involvements in two world wars, and NATO assistance is reluctant and often risible.

The U.S. strategy is "clear, hold and build." Clear? Taliban forces can evaporate and then return, confident that U.S. forces will forever be too few to hold gains. Hence nation-building would be impossible even if we knew how, and even if Afghanistan were not the second-worst place to try: The Brookings Institution ranks Somalia as the only nation with a weaker state.

Military historian Max Hastings says Kabul controls only about a third of the country -- "control" is an elastic concept -- and " 'our' Afghans may prove no more viable than were 'our' Vietnamese, the Saigon regime." Just 4,000 Marines are contesting control of Helmand province, which is the size of West Virginia. The New York Times reports a Helmand official saying he has only "police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for 'vacation.' " Afghanistan's $23 billion gross domestic product is the size of Boise's. Counterinsurgency doctrine teaches, not very helpfully, that development depends on security, and that security depends on development. Three-quarters of Afghanistan's poppy production for opium comes from Helmand. In what should be called Operation Sisyphus, U.S. officials are urging farmers to grow other crops. Endive, perhaps?

Even though violence exploded across Iraq after, and partly because of, three elections, Afghanistan's recent elections were called "crucial." To what? They came, they went, they altered no fundamentals, all of which militate against American "success," whatever that might mean. Creation of an effective central government? Afghanistan has never had one. U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry hopes for a "renewal of trust" of the Afghan people in the government, but the Economist describes President Hamid Karzai's government -- his vice presidential running mate is a drug trafficker -- as so "inept, corrupt and predatory" that people sometimes yearn for restoration of the warlords, "who were less venal and less brutal than Mr. Karzai's lot."

Mullen speaks of combating Afghanistan's "culture of poverty." But that took decades in just a few square miles of the South Bronx. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, thinks jobs programs and local government services might entice many "accidental guerrillas" to leave the Taliban. But before launching New Deal 2.0 in Afghanistan, the Obama administration should ask itself: If U.S. forces are there to prevent reestablishment of al-Qaeda bases -- evidently there are none now -- must there be nation-building invasions of Somalia, Yemen and other sovereignty vacuums?

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen's, is squandered.

I agree. Do you?

 

[Truthmatters]

He was for it before he was agin it

 

[random3434]

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen's, is squandered

.


That sounds like a good plan. Can it be implemented, and soon?

 

[Skull Pilot]

He was for it before he was agin it

who?

 

[Colin]

Much as I would be among the first to see the withdrawal of ALL our troops - having a family member about to deploy there yet again - the situation is not that cut and dried.

I see so many platitudes of puffery written by journalists who know not what they talk about. This appears to be yet another example.

The objective is to provide security for the Afghanistan government while we build and train their own forces to take over the role of security. Remove all the troops and the opportunity to train an Afghan army and security forces is removed. The country would simply fall back into Taliban oppression and the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice would have been wasted.

 

[Skull Pilot]

Much as I would be among the first to see the withdrawal of ALL our troops - having a family member about to deploy there yet again - the situation is not that cut and dried.

I see so many platitudes of puffery written by journalists who know not what they talk about. This appears to be yet another example.

The objective is to provide security for the Afghanistan government while we build and train their own forces to take over the role of security. Remove all the troops and the opportunity to train an Afghan army and security forces is removed. The country would simply fall back into Taliban oppression and the lives of those who made the ultimate sacrifice would have been wasted.

The "government" of Afghanistan barely controls one third of the country so in effect, there is no government.

It is not nor should it ever be the job of the US military to establish a government where there is none, nor to build roads, schools and hospitals for that matter.

There is no clear and present danger to our country from Afghanistan or the Taliban.

And the lives and valor of our troops have been wasted by the government for a cause that is not ours. Surely, the answer is not wasting more.

 

[Colin]

Once you've started something, you finish it. By the way. My relative is a British soldier. It isn't just the USA fighting this war you know...although it was started by you guys.

 

[Truthmatters]

He was for it before he was agin it

who?

Mr Will

 

[xsited1]

...

I agree. Do you?

Yep, time to leave. Now.

 

[Truthmatters]

How come you were willing to give Bush Years to fix it yet you are not willing to give Obama even months to do so?

 

[strollingbones]

Once you've started something, you finish it. By the way. My relative is a British soldier. It isn't just the USA fighting this war you know...although it was started by you guys.

why continue to pour men's lives into this mess? we should have learned from russia's prolonged engagement in afghaniistan. they have no fear of a modern army due to defeating the russians. i see no reason to continue to engage in a war we clearly cannot win, no matter how many troops or cash we toss at it.

 

[xsited1]

How come you were willing to give Bush Years to fix it yet you are not willing to give Obama even months to do so?

Is your question for Colin?

Next time, click 'Quote' so we know to whom you are responding.

 

[manu1959]

Once you've started something, you finish it. By the way. My relative is a British soldier. It isn't just the USA fighting this war you know...although it was started by you guys.

actually this is a continuation of a war started long before the usa existed............

 

[manu1959]

How come you were willing to give Bush Years to fix it yet you are not willing to give Obama even months to do so?

i wasn't ....we shouldn't be there ....we should not have one troop anywhere in the world other than on us soil or in a country that has asked us to be there and is paying the bill to have us there....

further we should not be spending one us tax dollar on anything but us soil and us citizens.....

 

[Mr Natural]

I'll bet the Russkies are laughing their asses off at us.

 

[manu1959]

I'll bet the Russkies are laughing their asses off at us.

or the french or the english or the spanish......they have all lost there as well......

 

[Skull Pilot]

How come you were willing to give Bush Years to fix it yet you are not willing to give Obama even months to do so?

who, me?

I was never willing to give bush a pass on Iraq or Afghanistan.

Neither action should have been taken.

 

[Truthmatters]

Pakistani nuclear weapons.

Taliban going back and forth at their will over the mountains of tora bora.

How would you like to live in a world with the taliban having nukes?

 

[manu1959]

Pakistani nuclear weapons.

Taliban going back and forth at their will over the mountains of tora bora.

How would you like to live in a world with the taliban having nukes?

if we had no troops in the middle east and cut off all funding world wide.....the taliban wouldn't be fucking with us.....they would be someone elses problem....if the decided to launch a nuke at the us from whereever.....that would be the end of wherever as well as the taliban....

 

[Mr Natural]

I'll bet the Russkies are laughing their asses off at us.

or the french or the english or the spanish......they have all lost there as well......

Yup, them too.