I’ve refrained from writing about Afghanistan lately, especially given the alleged “drawdown” about to take place this summer. I find little to be gained from interjecting yet another voice into the Sturm und Drang…especially when my voice will add nothing to the debate except yet more noise. Yesterday morning, though, while flipping through the 500 channels on my TV yesterday morning, I came across Fareed Zakaria on CNN (does anyone still watch CNN??) just in time to hear him make an excellent point. I realized then that I do have something to say, though I’m still not certain that anyone will care, much less pay attention.
Part of the current debate, at least insofar as I understand it, revolves around the best time and manner in which to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan. Zakaria’s point, which I think is spot on, is that THERE IS NO GOOD/BEST TIME TO WITHDRAW FROM AFGHANISTAN. No matter what we do, or how we do it, Afghanistan will be a mess once we’re gone. It was a mess before the war, and it continues to be a mess even with thousands upon thousands of American troops in-country. To think that we will leave Afghanistan substantially better than we found it is absurd and goes against every conceivable lesson Afghanistan’s history has to offer. The British and the Soviets both left with their tails between their legs. The American military will leave feeling perhaps a bit better about things than the British or Soviets, but any claim of “victory” in Afghanistan would be dishonest and disingenuous. Outside of the death of Osama bin-Laden, not much has been won (at least in the conventional definition of the word) in Afghanistan. No amount of revisionist history will change that salient fact.
One of the lessons of our involvement in Afghanistan (this also applies to Britain and the USSR), is that it just simply isn’t possibly to apply conventional military solutions to what’s still a tribal society. Afghanistan isn’t really even a country in the normal sense of the word. More a collection of warring tribes loosely allied due to something resembling common interests, Afghanistan is a mess by any modern, conventional standard. Most of the country lacks serviceable roads, the government controls little territory outside of Kabul, corruption is endemic, and infrastructure of any sort is close to non-existent. To think that we can pacify Afghanistan and leave it as a south Asian equivalent of Iowa is prima facie absurd.
From where I sit, I believe that it’s time for America to accept the reality that we’ve done about as much as we reasonably can. Nation-building, not exactly our military’s strong point, is next to impossible in Afghanistan. Despite the billions upon billions of US tax dollars that have been poured into nation-building efforts, there’s no reason to believe that the Afghan government, such as it is, won’t immediately collapse into irrelevance upon our exit.
Yes, I understand the need to fight terrorism, and that Afghanistan (and by extension, neighboring Pakistan) isn’t overwhelmingly attuned to American security interests. I can’t help but think, though, that there are far better ways to fight and defeat terrorism than for our military to be slowly and continually bled in Afghanistan. We killed Osama bin-Laden; al-Qaeda’s strength and coherence has been degraded. Now it’s time to focus on getting things together here at home so that we can stop the death and destruction overseas.
This is why I believe that President Obama’s timetable for withdrawal is lacking in both courage and vision. It’s time to begin taking care of America and stop focusing on a country that was, is, and will continue to be a basket case, whether American troops are on the ground or not.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
