By: John

John — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 13:55:37 +0000

You know there is a great invention known as paragraphs.

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:03:21 +0000

Thanks to Lee for adding to this ongoing conversation which is extremely important. You write, “It seems to me the burden of proof rests with those who argue for remaining, given the human misery war always necessarily unleashes, and not with those who argue for stopping what may well be a counterproductive war.”I totally agree. And this makes me think about the bizzare way in which our foreign policy regarding Afghanistan unfolded after Sept. 11. As a nation, we supported the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, quickly declared victory, and then turned our attention to Iraq in a way that totally eclipsed what should have been a robust, thoughtful national conversation about what we would do in Afghanistan going forward. If only we could have focused on Afghanistan after the initial invasion for a half-dozen years! In that case, the same “Powell Doctrine” that should have prevented us from invading Iraq — the idea that wars should employ overwhelming force, international coalitions, and an exit strategy — would have provided a framework within which we could have asked ourselves a whole series of important questions: What are our goals in Afghanistan? Which of our goals are necessary, and which are merely beneficial? How important is it to get Osama Bin Laden, and why? How will we evaluate our own tactics to determine if they are working? Instead of figuring out how to “succeed” in Afghanistan — whatever success would mean — we immediately embarked upon a war that was more than 10 times larger. And all the questions we, the American people, failed to process in terms of our war with Afghanistan would haunt us in Iraq, where our losses were much, much greater and our ability to change course was far more limited. My point is that the American people have largely (and understandably, if unfortunately) ignored the war in Afghanistan. As a result, we’re now faced with no clear understanding of why we’re there, what we’re trying to accomplish, and why we seem to be failing. If the American people had a clear sense (as they did when it came to the war in Iraq) of what America’s leadership was telling them about the war and what was actually going on over there – then the American people could compare the rhetoric and the reality and graducally come to their own conclusions. But we’re in a situation where most Americans haven’t paid much attention to the rhetoric or the reality — so there’s nothing to compare, no way to gauge what’s going on. Personally, I’ve accepted the argument that America should do all it can to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden and work to defeat Al Qaida, and America should also do all it can to replace the medieval political conditions in Afghanistan with something better. These are the sloppy assumptions I believe many Americans have relied upon to understand the situation in Afghanistan while they’ve focused more intently on Iraq and, more recently, the economy.If Obama were to withdraw from Afghanistan now, these assumptions would cause people to worry that he was giving Afghanistan over to the terrorists, abandoning the Afghani people to the Taliban, abandoning the need for justice regarding Bin Laden — many Americans would follow the logic of their assumptions and assume that Obama was simply dropping the ball.But you’ve implicitly suggested that (1) keeping troops in Afghanistan won’t necessarily lead to the killing or capturing of Bin Laden and won’t destroy Al Qaida (it hasn’t in 7 years), and (2) keeping troops in Afghanistan isn’t improving the situation there for the Afghani people, and may actually be making things worse. It’s true that the burden of proof should rest with the people putting America’s volunteer soldiers into the line of fire, rather than with those who would bring those soldiers back to safety. Nevertheless, the political reality is that the American people have to accept your arguments before they will accept the idea that pulling out of Afghanistan is in our national interest. So it’s great we’re talking about it!
Let’s just hope the new National Security Advisor Jason Jones and the new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can either (a) show the political courage to begin educating the American people about why we should withdraw, or (b) show the political skill to begin convincing patriotic skeptics, such as Lee, that this war is worth more American deaths.

Comments on: Afghanistan: 2004 and 2008

By: John

By: Ian