Afghanistan Bananistan

Posted Wed, 10/07/2009 - 15:52 by Michael J Smith

It’s hard for me to see how recent military adventurism on the part of the United States has helped to make us safer or helped the people of Iraq or Afghanistan. If we were to judge these efforts in business terms, we would declare them to be failures. We would pull the products off the shelves and fire the people responsible. The election in 2008 took care of the latter but we have yet to deal with the former…

 

Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t expect President Obama to shut down Gitmo, extract troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, fix the worldwide banking system, achieve full employment, balance the budget, reform health care, and secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago in the first 10 months of his presidency.

I was willing to give him 18 months.

Ba-da-bing!

Okay, I didn’t really have a timetable, but based on the 2008 elections, it was my expectation that President Obama would work consistently and expeditiously toward all of those goals. Well, except the Olympics. Quite honestly, I didn’t realize the 2016 games were up grabs, but then, I don’t really care about the Olympics. In my view, we see more than enough of HGH-fueled athletes with ambiguous genitalia in high-tech, low-drag, body-hugging synthetic fibers as it is. Seeing Michael Phelps shrink-wrapped junk once every four years is actually too soon, if you ask me.

But I digress.

My memory is every bit as short as anyone else these days, but to the best of my recollection, we went to Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. Maybe you remember him, too. He’s the guy who was actually behind the 9/11 attacks. I know some of you think that Saddam Hussein was the 9/11 bad guy, but it was bin Laden. We’ve continued to look for bin Laden in Afghanistan even though his mail has been forwarded to a cave in Pakistan for several years now. Perhaps he summers near Kandahar…

So why then are we still in Afghanistan? More importantly, how do we get out? The two are related, of course. The "why" would definitely affect the "how." Will adding 40,000 troops now shorten the overall timeline and cost for our war in Afghanistan? If so, I’m in favor of it. If not, put me down as a no. What do we hope to achieve in Afghanistan, anyway? Given Afghanistan’s history from Alexander the Great to the Soviet Union I recommend we set the bar low when it comes time to set goals.

I’ve heard that we’re in Afghanistan to eliminate a safe haven for al Qaeda. That would be an admirable goal if Afghanistan was the last and only place on earth that al Qaeda could use as a safe haven. It isn’t, of course. Timothy McVeigh didn’t need to much more than a truck and a garage to plan and execute the bombing of the Murrah Building. Al Qaeda doesn’t need Afghanistan. To everyone who sees this as the goal of US intervention in Afghanistan I say, "Sit down. Shut up. You got nothin’."

Seriously. Shut up. You’re reminding me of the Bush years.

I have also heard that if we leave Afghanistan and the Taliban return to power, Afghanistan women’s lives will be even worse than Afghanistan women’s lives usually are. We need to stay in Afghanistan until a government is in place with a national army that can defeat the Taliban and a police force that can secure women’s rights.

WTF?

Taliban or no, Afghanistan is still a Muslim state. Muslim women can only dream of being blown up in a women’s health center while waiting to have a legal, first trimester abortion like American women can. The goal of securing the rights of women in Afghanistan is both impossible and ridiculous (not to mention culturally condescending). Worse, if that’s possible, it is perhaps little more than the shameless pandering of old white men looking for women’s votes in November.

Of course, there’s always the "we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here" argument.

Okay, that’s more jingoistic sophistry than argument, but if you really want to go there…

  • Fighting them there is still fighting them; Americans are still dying. More Americans have died in Iraq than died on September 11, 2001.
  • Fighting them there is a living, breathing recruiting poster for al Qaeda.
  • Fighting them there makes it easier for al Qaeda to kill Americans; they don’t have to buy plane tickets, they just wait for us to drive down the road.
  • Terrorist attacks against the United States during the Clinton administration were thwarted or the perpetrators were brought to justice.
  • Terrorist attacks against the United States during the Bush administration were not stopped despite explicit warnings; Osama bin Laden is still at large.
  • As long as there are at least two members of al Qaeda, they will have the operational capability to be in two places at once, here and there.

It’s been said that nations have neither friends nor enemies; only interests. Even if our interests in Afghanistan could be articulated (it’s the middle domino?) I’m not sure it would matter to me. I’m done. Unless, of course, this has all been an elaborately planned and orchestrated sting operation that will ultimately result in the arrest and trial of Osama bin Laden (fingers crossed!). I’ve made up my mind. Maybe you think there is a good reason to keep US troops in Afghanistan, maybe even one of the reasons above. I just don’t see it. I want our troops out of Afghanistan (and Iraq) and I want it to happen at 600mph.

Meanwhile, the President is seeking the advice of the best foreign policy minds he could assemble to determine what the United States should do next in Afghanistan. Everything is on the table. Everything, that is, but withdrawal.

I hope this means American foreign policy in Afghanistan is wearing a condom.

~ October 7, 2009

themike@wavingalien.com