“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Is Afghanistan becoming the Hotel California?
Back in 2014, Obama declared victory — well, he called it “over.” We even informed our enemies ahead of time that we were leaving, to show good manners.
But as wars are known to do, it keeps not stopping. That is, bullets whiz by and bombs explode … and our American military hasn’t left.
Obama feared that if we pulled out completely from the longest war in our history, the Afghan government would soon collapse and the Taliban would rush back to power. Last year the Taliban controlled more of the country than at anytime since 2001, when we first … “won.”
Now President Trump, the purported isolationist, stares at a report from military commanders on what to do. Their answer, according to the Washington Post, is to send “at least 3,000” more soldiers to Afghanistan, in addition to the 8,500 currently stationed there. And to allow US troops to engage in greater combat.
“The plan would also increase spending on Afghanistan’s troubled government,” the Post reported. But more money won’t un-corrupt the system.
Afghanistan expert Andrew Wilder with the U.S. Institute of Peace predicts that, “the U.S. is going to send more troops, but it’s not to achieve a forever military victory. Rather, it’s to try to bring about a negotiated end to this conflict.”
Will American soldiers be laying down their lives merely to better the odds for negotiating an improbable “good deal” with the Taliban?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Hotel Afghanistan”
“the longest war in our history”
is Korea.
“Just war” is the armed response against an aggressor who has attacked you and is justly prosecuted to the point that the aggressor is no longer able to war against you. Afganistan is no longer a “just war”, if it ever was, it is now but a continued meddling in the internal affairs of a country/culture that differs from the western concepts of a proper government. It is a throw-back to an earlier to an earlier, and certainly not better, point in human history and development. We (foolishly) tried to accelerate its “development” and failed.
The current conflict cannot be “won”, and any “deal” is fallacious. The Afghans must eventually sort out their internal issues themselves. Presently, and for the past 30 years, the only thing the Afghans have universally agreed upon is to shoot the Americans, and/or other foreign intervenors, first.
It is insanity to believe Afganistan can be “gentrified” by any foreign presence. Neither the Russians nor the US has been able to do so.
The effect of the foreign interventions has been to finance the continuation of a local and sectarian dispute long after it could have continued under normal economic constraints. Without subsidies, the belligerents would have run out of munitions, manpower or both long ago.
Historically local and sectarian wars sometimes end only because there is no other alternative.
The first inkling of wisdom is to know what cannot be changed regardless of a desire to do so, in Afganistan US foreign policy has not yet reached that point.
Couldn’t say this any better than JFB.
The Russians knew when to quit. Afghanistan has been a no man’s land for centuries. Taliban etc are evil but I am tired of the precious blood of servicemen being spilled over this wasteland.
You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.
If the people of Afghanistan cared about their country, we would never have had to go in there.
It’s time to leave and let the Taliban have its way. Let the people fight them, if they really want to be free.