by Jack Lee
Almost every empire that has ever existed has done itself in with a protracted and extremely expensive war.
Afghanistan: It’s been nine years of war and a trillion dollars spent and we’re still no further ahead than we were in the beginning. The reasons for this are many. For example, it’s one of the most corrupt places on earth. The chairman of a key House subcommittee said Monday that she would strip $3.9 billion in aid for Afghanistan from next year’s spending bill over concerns about rampant graft in the country and alleged efforts by President Hamid Karzai’s government to derail corruption probes. The CIA says billions have already left the country for parts unknown – presumably this was our aid money. So, how do we deal with a government that is corrupt, where every dollar of aid is subject to theft? Maybe we just don’t…because we can’t fix it and there is no will for the citizens to fix it.
Afghanis are stuck in tribalism and this means there’s hundreds of petty dictators to deal with and they have little use for the central government. They lack almost everything in terms of natural resources. Except for the recent discovery of a gem stone deposit in the mountains this country is a pile of rocks. They have a backward, ignorant and illiterate population that is among the poorest in the world and they are mostly Islamic fundamentalists. Maybe in a 100 years and trillions of dollars later we can put a shine on this place…maybe, but is taht what you want us to do? We have a lot of pressing needs here at home and I think we would be so much better off fixing this country than gambling on fixing Afghanistan.
Already we half dozen coalition nations ready to pull out. Some of strongest allies want out by 2012. Canada, Poland, Australia, Germany and others are ready to leave, because time is up. They recognize they do not have a 100 years to complete this mission.
Allegedly, we’re there to keep Al Qeada from returning and plotting another 9/11. We’re trying to teach the locals how to fight so they can have free elections and we can exit, but they already know how to fight! They’ve been in a state of war since 1992 – what they don’t know is, how to read! How do you run a roadside checkpoint when the guards can’t even read a driver’s license?
To complicate matters further, we now have these crazy rules of engagement thanks to White House political meddling. You have probably heard about the new rules, you can’t fire at the enemy unless fired upon. And if a civilian is even remotely in the area you can’t return fire at all. This is ripping the heart out of troop moral. The new rules of engagement have put our troops at high risk and we’ve been taking a record number of casualties, ah but Obama has authorized a medal for courageous restraint, so I guess that makes it all okay.
The CIA tells us there are probably fewer than 50 Al Qeada fighters in the entire country right now. The rest are Taliban and they have no place to run, this is their home, we’re stuck with them.
On the other side, President Karzai has been negotiating with the Taliban while frequently taking issue with our military actions. My question is, what’s the real risk if we leave? Will the Taliban turn up over here and try to blow up something? Not likely. Will Pakistani militants join up with them to cause us harm? Not likely, Afghani’s have little use for Pakis, (a grudge dates back a 100 years when their nation was carved up and Pakistan took control over a key region)
When we marched into Kabul using a handful of Special Forces to guide the Army of the Northern Alliance, that could have been where we said, “mission accomplished” and told them if anyone in Afghanistan plots another 9/11, we’ll be back. This was a point of victory for us, AQ was scurrying across the border into Pakistan, their safe haven in Afghanistan was destroyed and the Taliban was no longer a viable fighting force and they learned we meant business. Close enough, we didn’t need to go any further. But, we did and we totally ignored the lessons from history. We thought we were different than all the previous occupying forces. We too focused on national building to spread democracy to take note of the hard realities.
At this point it would take a blood bath of violence to uproot the old tribal system and nobody wants that. There are people living in the hinterlands who still don’t know the Russians have left and that the Americans have replaced them. This is a backward and corrupt place, devoid of almost everything that it takes to sustain life and create a stabil Islamic government. It’s a rock desert and we can’t force rocks to blossom no matter how much we want them too.