| Submit your comments on this article |
| Afghanistan |
| Trump's Instincts On Afghanistan Are Right, So What Happened? |
| 2018-05-12 |
| [WarOnTheRocks] Before agreeing in April to support President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, Sen. Rand Paul said Trump "told me over and over again in general we’re getting the hell out of [Afghanistan]." Based on my experiences during two combat deployments to Afghanistan in 2005 and 2011, the president’s instincts are spot-on correct. Last month marked the 40th anniversary of the 1978 coup that violently brought communist rulers into power in Kabul. Two years later the Soviet Union invaded. Ten years later, they withdrew, laying the foundation for the Mujahideen Civil War that led to the rise of the Taliban in 1996 and their war against the Northern Alliance. This war was still raging on 9/11 when the U.S. military entered the scene. The fundamental causes of these various civil wars still remain today. After 40 years of fighting, the Taliban’s fight against Kabul is not going to simply end due to U.S. intervention. The sooner Trump translates his instincts on ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan into policy, the better for America. A withdrawal will improve American national security and strengthen economic prosperity. Extricating U.S. troops from Afghanistan will not be easy, however, because there are many in Washington ‐ senior military leaders among them ‐ who want to defend the status quo at any cost. There is no benefit to the United States in trying to fight yesterday’s failed battles but trying to do it "better." The strategy has failed, not the tactics. Many in the Washington establishment incorrectly believe leaving Afghanistan in its current state will increase the threat to America and make it "once again" a safe haven for terrorists who might one day want to attack the U.S. homeland. This is an argument based on a flawed understanding of what conditions on the ground in Afghanistan are like and on what military power over there can accomplish. And it also includes a willful blind spot to the actual outcomes of their policy choices over the last decade and a half. It’s long past time Washington recognizes the facts on the ground mean the fight on the ground is Afghanistan’s and will never be resolved regardless of U.S. intentions or taxpayer-funded assistance. No number of American military troops will ever change their political dynamics. The people on the ground who have to live with the outcome are the only ones who can manufacture a lasting resolution. Until ‐ or unless ‐ they come to a decision on their own, U.S. blood and taxpayer dollars will pour indefinitely into a bottomless pit, without even the possibility of achieving something that benefits Americans. Trump’s instincts and Paul’s emphatic requests to end the U.S. mission in Afghanistan are both correct. For the sake of American security and economic interests, it is time to turn Afghanistan over to Afghans and focus on rebuilding our military for fights against near-peers who might actually pose an existential threat to America. Get us the hell out of there already. Of course, nobody in Washington wants this outcome because endless war is highly profitable. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy |
| #2 It's flooding into America is the form of opiates. Any more questions why the status quo is preferred? |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2018-05-12 12:40 |
| #1 But...but...what about the opium? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2018-05-12 11:49 |