The War Goes On

Update: Just watched the most uninspiring speech I have ever seen from Obama. The cadets at West Point are dozing off, and so is my husband. As for me, I am quite peeved at Obama. Way to go, Democrats.

We are looking at least three more years of IGTNT. This sucks. Every night that IGTNT is published, everyone, including the writers, wish this heartbreaking series would come to an end. I truly don’t understand why Obama is doing this. Why continue this war? What justifies this war?

Afghanistan will doom Obama. It isn’t called the “graveyard of empires” for nothing. From the Mongols to the Soviets, nobody conquers Afghanistan. But even if it were to happen that we did conquer them, then what? What in God’s name is the reason for us to still be there? It isn’t Al-Queda because they are not in Afghanistan. They are in Pakistan, Asia and the Middle East. Remember the 9-11 terrorists were mostly from Saudi Arabia. The bin Ladens are from Saudi Arabia not Afghanistan. Osama might have been in Tora-Bora but we let him slip away. Most likely he is dead. Benazir Bhutto confirmed it in this interview shortly before she was assassinated.

A friend wrote at Out of Afghanistan.com:

Let’s play this one out. It is December of 2011. Karzai has made little to no headway on the anti-corruption front. Every last member of Al-Qaeda is in the mountains of Pakistan. The Taliban have largely been routed by NATO troops, but in limited skirmishes the Afghan National Army seems unable to handle them without NATO support. Both supporters and opponents of the war can agree that this is a fairly plausible set of outcomes. Does that mean we can leave?

If we start drawing down, the Taliban will start fighting back. Maybe they’ll take a few villages here and there, maybe mount an unsuccessful assault on a major city. Al-Qaeda hangs out on the Afghan-Pakistan border, depending on which side is being more aggressive. People still hate Karzai. His brother is still the biggest opium dealer in the country. A suicide bomb periodically blows up a Kabul market square. Do we keep drawing down? Do we re-surge? Do we keep troop levels the same? Where do we get these troops in the first place? Now it’s 2012 and Republicans are running on the platform that Obama has lost Afghanistan.

You see, the situation in Afghanistan has always been fucked. It is a country where multiple generations have come of age knowing nothing but war and corruption. It is also a country with almost no infrastructure, limited roads, and a brutal winter that shuts large swaths of the country down for months. It is a country where we prop an anti-democratic corrupt figurehead surrounded by brutal warlords so that the country isn’t overtaken by ruthless fundamentalist ruthless warlords. And we are in this country because it might potentially serve as a haven for a bunch of men in caves plotting terrorist strikes against the United States. I find it incredibly hard to believe that the leaders of Al Qaeda could not find another place in South Asia, the Middle East or Africa to sit on rugs and conjure up plots, if we were somehow able to make an impassible mountain range between Afghanistan and Pakistan more inhospitable for them than it is now (And while we’re at it, let’s please stop with the nonsense that Pakistan may become so destabilized by these fundamentalist hicks that they will lose control of their nuclear weapons, which will then be launched against the United States, or India, or Israel).

In other words, there is no good reason for us to be there. This is the 3rd poorest country in the world, do we really want to occupy it? We cannot remain as their policemen overseeing corruption and abuse. Heck, we have enough of it here. We need them here at home and now.