Afghanistan Withdrawal - 2009-10-13

Some of you may recall that last March in this Commentary we forecast that THE U.S. CANNOT WIN THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN.

Now, General McChrystal is saying that unless he gets another 30 or 40 thousand troops, the Taliban will win. Well, we do not believe the extra troops, if the US does decide to deploy them, will destroy the Taliban’s resistance.

Furthermore, there is no leadership in Afghanistan worthy of taking over even if the Taliban were defeated. If we want a democratic regime in Afghanistan we are not going to find it under Hamid Karzai.

It is a bitter pill to swallow for a nation like the US to admit that victory will never come, particularly when the mission’s goal is noble. But it had to do so in Korea and again in Vietnam and we have no doubt it will eventually have to again, in Afghanistan.

No invader has ever defeated the Afghanis on their own turf. So let’s save the valuable lives of the men and women who should not die in a war that cannot be won,….. by calling it quits.

Yes there are global issues, like Al Qaeda and the spread of Islamic fundamentalism. That is why the US went into to Afghanistan in the first place. But a communist regime in Viet Nam did not spell the end of South East Asia. A Taliban regime in Afghanistan will likely not spread beyond its borders, and while the regime is reprehensible in many ways, it just isn’t possible to force every country in the world to our way of thinking.

If you are losing a football game 48 to 0 you don’t give up. You play it until the final whistle is blown, clawing for every yard. But this is not a game. This involves the lives of men and women and children that will be lost in the years to come...in vain.

I think President Obama knows this, and that is why he is reluctant to send more troops. There is no way to get out of this without losing face for the US and himself, but real leadership requires both knowing when to fight… and knowing when to withdraw.