Afghanistan: Quite simply 'there is no good reason'

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to the Diane Rehm’s show on NPR. I feel so sorry for folks who either don’t live where there is an NPR affiliate station, or have let the wingnut media convince them that it’s some kind of liberal media conspiracy.

But I digress.

She had Amb. Richard Haass, president, Council on Foreign Relations among her guests and the message I heard was simply that none, I repeat ‘None’, of the ‘arguments of why we should be fighting an intractable war in Afghanistan hold water.

Al Qaeda can, and do, craft terrorist plans anywhere and everywhere. Close Afghanistan to them, and like cockroaches in the dark, they slip away to Tunisia, Somalia, to Pakistan or for that matter Denver, Colorado. Further, to believe that our presence in Afghanistan is doing anything other than to push the situation in Pakistan closer to the brink of total disaster is also not ‘playing with a full deck’.

To think that Afghanistan under the CIA’s crooked puppet regime of Hamid Karzai will ever become a stable, democratic society is pure wishful thinking bordering on the delusional.

And for this, we - you and I, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer- donate $1 million per soldier per year. Beyond that worse yet, too many of us are ‘donating’ the lives of our fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, classmates and friends. Furthermore, this war is costing us untold millions and suffering of seriously wounded vets, broken families due to repeated deployments, in addition to the outright stealing that goes on from private sector ‘suppliers’ operating outside the system on a ‘cost-plus’ basis. Can you say Blackwater, KBR and Halliburton? Through these rogue ‘vendors’, we’re proving to the world that we can be just as corrupt as the worst of ‘em. Maybe Sarah Palin ought to sign up to really get ‘Going Rogue’.

I’ve lived long enough to have heard this old song and dance before. Then, it was about Vietnam. Gee, if we could only ‘be in it to win’, ‘if we would just send more/enough troops’….

Take a listen here, and see what you think.

Comments

[bluelyon]

When I saw the headline that Obama intends to "finish the job" in Afghanistan, I wanted to cry. From the NYT:

While he avoided any hints of the new troop levels he foresees in Afghanistan, the president signaled that he will not be talking about a short-term commitment but rather an effort muscular enough to “dismantle and degrade” the enemy and ensure that “Al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot operate” in the region.

Where have we heard that before?