Time to get out of Afghanistan, or at least time not get in anymore than we're already in

While the boys were with the in-laws this week, Mrs. Avdat and I actually sat down and watched the evening news together, and I saw something that astounded me: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is threatening to join the Taliban. Moreover, former U.N. envoy to Afghanistan Peter Galbreath suggested that Karzai's recent erratic behavior was due to drug abuse.

I've seen and heard nothing about this from my usual news sources: the local paper, NPR and selected center-left blogs. I find that... odd.

Isn't this big news?

So... what in the hell are we fighting for, anyway?

This Afghan surge is intended to do more than destroy Al Qaida. It's intended to help the Afghan government consolidate its hold on the country. Nation building, in other words. But if the Afghan government is in power due to election fraud, and if their President is a coke head, and if they insist on biting the hand that feeds them in the media, well then, is this the sort of nation we want to ask Americans to kill and die for?

Galbreath's solution, to limit Karzai's power until he proves himself stable enough to deserve presidential power, is textbook colonialism. A more obvious solution is to let Karzai roll the dice with the Taliban on his own dime, not ours.

I don't sense that there's any political will, popular support or spiritual courage to adopt an approach to Al Qaida that eschews military force. But maybe it's time to lower our expectations and our presence there. With the benefit of hindsight, Vice-President Biden's alternative strategy to limit ourselves to raining fire and brimstone on Al Qaida whenever they crawl out of their caves is starting to look more sensible.

Comments

[Sarah]

Freddie Mercury would have been a good president. As the beginning of this video demonstrates, he easily manipulates a huge mass of people who instantly do his bidding.