Washington, D.C.:There is no military draft in the United States today, which probably explains why the debate over the war in Afghanistan has been so muted and sporadic.
When soldiers are "volunteers" — and in addition, drawn disproportionately from minority populations and the ranks of the economically disempowered — it is far easier for the rest of us to mostly ignore combat operations overseas.
Additionally, since nobody knows what to do in Afghanistan, or knows what actions will yield what results, many citizens are genuinely ambivalent and reluctant to speak up.
Shall we stay? For how long? Under what conditions? At what cost? How will it work out in the end?
Shall we leave? When? Should we withdraw all the troops, or just some? Won't al-Qaeda return? How will it work out in the end?
If you read widely about the war in books, newspapers, and the military's own documents, you will find an enormous and disturbing lack of agreement about the current conflicts in central Asia.
Our government's doubts are greater and more significant than those which occurred during the Vietnam War because the stakes are higher and there are many more variables involved.
This is an extraordinary state of affairs, for this is a major military action we are conducting.
Increasingly it seems like we are still in Afghanistan only because it would be so awkward for us to leave. How do you remove 150,000 NATO troops from a country gracefully?
We have bitten off more than we can chew, and now we are in very real danger of institutionalizing an impasse, or worse.
America, we need to debate this war. For how many years do we want to occupy an 8th-century land full of rubble, illiteracy, fiefdoms, corruption, barbarism and bizarre concepts of justice and time that are defended by reference to God's will?
Because our government cannot — or will not — put together a coherent, logical narrative about what we are accomplishing in central Asia, about the likelihood of success, and about what "success" is, we should find a way soon to halt military action there.
The government's story so far is simply not credible. President Karzai's administration is not becoming less corrupt; the Taliban's ideas do not die with their drone-bombed leaders; the divided Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Heratis and Hazaras are not a melting pot; al-Qaeda is proliferating like a virus in dozens of nations; and none of this will be any different in 2014, or in whatever year becomes the next "deadline" for withdrawal.
And so what if a formidable NATO presence, along with immense firepower, has achieved a stalemate? It isn't as though a stand-off is good for Afghanistan — or us.
Constant friction and hostilities involving Western occupiers is food for fundamentalist ideologies.
And that is absolutely counterproductive to waging the real battle against terrorism.
In the fight against fanatics, which will not be won by armies and bombings, the Western world cannot afford to behave clumsily in Muslim countries.
We've got to go where invited, and offer non-military aid that undermines the ideologies, ignorance and attractions of religious fundamentalisms.
Look at our own country. We prefer not to bomb our cults. Generally speaking, we believe in universal education and economic empowerment to pull people away from ignorance, religious zealotry, violence, hate crimes, survivalism and brutality.
Almost all of the Taliban were once young boys who came through Pakistan's nastiest madrassas, where they were brainwashed and revved up by fundamentalist imams who distorted the notion of jihad into a crusade against Western infidels.
Had destitute and desperate Afghan and Pakistani families not had to send their sons to these local schools for basic care, shelter, and food, the Taliban themselves not exist.
We cannot fix with war what decades of neglect have wrought. The United States ought to declare a unilateral cease-fire, halt all bombing, stop destabilizing Pakistan, and start considering alternatives. The $120 billion a year that this would free up could support a lot of other approaches.
We have no "enemy" in this war, merely insurgents who live in the country we presume to modernize. We want to convince them that their crazy Sharia law is unacceptable. Indeed, it is archaic, but then so are mud huts and donkey carts.
Our training of an Afghan army may be righteous. But it is also quite likely that we are inadvertently laying the groundwork for a perpetual civil war that will continue long after we depart the country.
If the Taliban retake Afghanistan, it's possible that al-Qaeda will return too. If so, we can handle them in the same way that we're going to handle them in Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, Iraq, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The longer our military actions bang against the innumerable, overwhelming problems that characterize virtually every aspect and sector of Afghanistan, the more likely it becomes that we will be manufacturing, enlarging and empowering both the local insurgents and the more deadly global perpetrators of permanent terrorism.
(source:salemnews.com)
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