If you listen to the experts -- competent reporters like Dexter Filkins or diplomats or Afghani leaders or scholars -- you'll be hard put to find a reason for keeping our military in Afghanistan (or even justification for having sent our military there in the first place). Really. We could make a long list here of reasons why we think someone or other decided to go and, once there, to stay. But no one seems to answer the most basic question: what's the goal? And none of the reasons holds up to scrutiny.
That realization finally got through to this citizen while listening to a report from Filkins (no opponent of war, not a peacenik). It was an NPR report with all the usual scratchy pauses when the reporter is speaking from somewhere in Kabul on a sat phone.
And I think - I mean, I think your listeners are entitled to ask the question: What are American Marines and soldiers are fighting for? I mean, what are they fighting for? And I think the answer - if you put that question to one of the commanders here or one of the American diplomats, they would say, we want - our people are going to be here fighting and dying. And if the American public is going to be paying for this, we want the government that they're fighting for to be as efficient and as honest and as credible and legitimate as we can make it. And so, when you have - as is the case here - when you have, you know, extraordinary level of corruption, the drug trade, the drugs dealing, it makes that case pretty difficult to make.
Why are we there? No solid reason whatsoever.
Obama is refining his strategy from several options outlined during more than 15 hours of meetings in the White House, administration officials say.
Plenty strategy. No stated goal. Plenty how, no why. Big mistake.
____
Update: Let's not overlook the Onion's wisdom in this matter (h/t Sullivan):According to sources at the Pentagon, American quagmire-building efforts continued apace in Afghanistan this week, as the geographically rugged, politically unstable region remained ungovernable, death tolls continued to rise, and the grim military campaign persisted as hopelessly as ever.
In fact, many government officials now believe that the United States and its allies could be as little as six months away from their ultimate goal: the total quagmirification of Afghanistan.
