Time to Get Real About Afghanistan

“We can fight this battle on the streets of Kabul or in Kansas City.”

Ruben Navarrette, writing for CNN, has used little creative brain power in authoring his article. It seems that the above quote was taken directly from the George W. Bush and Dick Cheney play book when they were massaging the facts, fabricating stories about WMD’s, and just plain old fashioned lying, as part of their campaign to market the Iraq War to a frightened American people.

Time to get real, Ruben. This type of lame argument was used by the Bush team to scare Americans into supporting the Iraq War disaster. Now that Obama is heading for his own disaster in Afghanistan here we go again.

You may be a supporter of Obama’s War but have you no more convincing reason than to state that the Taliban and/or al-Queda have the means to seriously threaten the heart of what may be a nation in decline but one that still has the most powerful military on earth? All together, the Taliban and al-Queda probably have less than 50,000 true believers and fighters. The last time I checked they had no navy, no air force, or even tanks.

In addition, you seem to be making the same simple minded mistake as our high level government officials, equating the Taliban with al-Queda. They are different organizations with far different goals. FYI, the Taliban are local in nature and above all else want foreign troops out of their neighborhood. I imagine that if foreign troops were “building outposts” in any part of the US Americans would act to get them out too. Oh yes, we did that before, didn’t we? We called it the American War of Independence.

As for al-Queda, according to our own US military they now have very little if any presence in Afghanistan. One reason for their lack of influence is that the Taliban and Afghani people view them as foreign as NATO and US forces and want them out as they want all foreigners out of Afghanistan. Only the war profiteers, in and out of government, want to see foreign forces forever fighting it out in Afghanistan.

We missed our best shot at al-Queda eight years ago by invading Iraq instead of completing the job in Afghanistan. We had the option of turning our highly capable special forces troops loose to take Osama out but President Bush choose not to take it. Now if you want to take on al-Queda you should take a look at Somalia, Yeman, and Pakistan. Osama bin Laden’s's stated goal is to “bleed the US dry”. By fighting ill advised expensive wars in far away places we are assisting Osama beyond his wildest dreams.

Ruben, you really should know that simple minded solutions will not be sufficient to solve complex problems. Building more military bases and garrisions is hardly the answer to the problem. By backing the corrupt and inefficient Karzai government and doing little to provide security and economic progress to the people of Afghanistan we have placed ourselves in a most difficult position.
The US military understands that a military victory is not possible in Afghanistan. In a culture where revenge is a matter of honor and a way of life we can not kill our way to victory.

As in Vietnam we can win all of the battles and still lose the war. Unless, we can commit to rebuilding from top to bottom one of the poorest and most corrupt nations on earth we should bring the troops home. I seriously doubt if even Obama is willing to commit to the hundreds of billions, probably into the trillions, of dollars and at least a three or four decade effort that would be required for nation building.

The cold hard reality is that the US has plenty of its own problems to deal with and should be scaling back its spending in all areas. Building more bases and garrisions in faraway lands, adding to the more than 800 bases we already maintain around the world, is hardly a way to scale back to our new financial reality.

The US is broke and its government is out of control. It’s time to work on those sad facts.