In Afghanistan, What Does Win Mean?

I am very uncomfortable about the Afghan war. In this political season when domestic issues are at the helm of the debate, Afghanistan is looming in the background. If the mainstream press catches on to what is going on over there, I predict it will move to the forefront of the political debate in the next presidential election.

More than 575 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since Barack Obama was sworn in as President. 323 of those casualties occurred this year alone. The total number of American/British/Australian casualty’s exceeds 2200 since the beginning of the war. The death trend lines are on the way up.

President Obama said that Iraq was the wrong war. The right war was in Afghanistan. He has a point. Afghanistan was the launching point for the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda in collaboration with the Taliban Afghan government. We should retaliate against the country that invaded us…and that would be Afghanistan. The first American military charge of the 21st Century was a cavalry charge in the Northern provinces.

But beyond the logic of attaching those who attacked you…what does one do with Afghanistan? It is one of the poorest nations in the world. Its chief export is opium. It has a medieval religion…even the moderates are archaic! It does have substantial natural resource deposits, but they are located in difficult places to mine.

To quote the Looks Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag from the Vietnam protest days: “Well, it’s one, two three, what are we fightin’ for?” I wish the government would explain what the ultimate goal is in Afghanistan. How does one define “win” in Afghanistan?

We have routed the Taliban from Kabul, the capital. The balance of the country is nominally under control of the national government, but in reality is under the control of a bunch of tribes and warlords. These guys are friendly to whomever pays them the most, or the party who scares them the most.

Al Qaeda and the Taliban are scattered in the mountains, some of which are in Afghanistan, and others in Pakistan in a wasteland region out of control of the Pakistani government. This is guerilla warfare being fought by zealots funded by Iran. How does an occupying force “win” such a war? I don’t think it can be won in the traditional sense. Even a nation building approach is questionable as the Afghan government is hopelessly corrupt.

President Bush was faced with three rogue nations after 9/11: Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Bush and Obama have at least achieved a degree of victory in Iraq. Iran seems to be off the table when it comes to military action. And in Afghanistan, we appear to be gearing up for a war of attrition against an enemy that cannot be defined or segregated into any specific boundary or territory. That is scary. Afghanistan is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing. Its most recent casualty was the Soviet Union, which bankrupted itself into oblivion.

Add to the mix Obama’s extreme left wing ideological bent…I think he owes the American public a concise and pithy explanation of American goals in this war. If it were George Bush sitting in the White House, I guarantee you would see body counts on the nightly news…night after night after night.

So Mr. Obama, what does “win” mean in Afghanistan?