UPDATE FROM WSJ AND RALPH PETERS ON THIS AT BOTTOM
No less than George Will marshaled a bunch of facts to come to the conlcusion that American land forces should be withdrawn from that Asian nation and we should Predator and Hellfire our way to victory. In this he finds himself with Feingold and many other tired americans. Tired of it all.
Sounds tempting.
It should be.
Who needs our men and women gettting killed in a place which may well WANT to be backwards, VERY Islamist and left alone?
But, let's look at this PURELY from American interest and reality.
Will this or any admin you can realistically imagine RUTHLESSY apply usage of airborne death (precisely what Genl McChrystal says is costing us support) to kill those who by percentage fit the probability definitions we need to launch?
When we wipe out the next wedding (?) at which a suspecting Taliban leader shows (maybe) will we go on and kill everyone at the next party?
Can we support such operations from Pakistan? MAY WE DO SO?
We CANNOT from aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean over a period of years. Unless we want to make this a permanent cost basis of american defense ... the Afghan Fleet..which can put drones and air, after overflight of Pakistani airspace over Afghanistan for some MINUTES and then return. Or maybe we intend to orbit B-1's from Diego Garcia or Incirlik, and take our chances on bombing correctly from there?
But what if we leave the poppy growing freaks and just tell them, 'don't make us come back'?
Takers?
I can remember as we wound down in the 90's after sending Sidewinders galore to the Mujahideen despite warnings I CAN RECALL that we had really made no friends. I arrogantly rejected such 'garbage'. After all, we had helped them get rid of the Russkies. They must like us, right?
If we remove our men and women, the only way this works is if we have the fortitude and poltical will to wreak mass casualties and stone age results when things don't go our way. As ALWAYS occur in war. ALWAYS. 'Sorry about your wedding, but we intend to do this again and again'. In essence that would have to be the irreducable message.
Do we have such will? The American people. DO we?
Bush did not. Obama does not. The american people do not. Not even if we are hit again, I fear, unless the president AT THAT MOMENT does what Bush failed to do. I see no leader willing to articulate that kind of leadership.
Therefore if we withdraw our men and women, it is my judgement that not only will the Taliban take back the nation of Afghnistan in full (and go on in the same old way, with same old goals - INCLUDING GOALS REGARDING THE USA), but that it will be seen as a greater victory than that of the Islamists over the USSR. And that will be its significance. Not that we left, but what was perceived about our leaving, and what it will inspire among those who we mean to kill.
George Will is dreaming on this one.
It might be nice to make an Afghanistan of some sort which is above Somalia, and somewhat less than colonial Virginia, but that's not the mission. The mission is KILLING the movement, and thereby choking off the process.
So, what has to be done to kill islamism in Afganistan?
While we're at it, maybe we can help them. But that's not the purpose, and they and we should be very clear about that. We did NOT arrive there in 10/01 to help. We arrived there to kill and conquer because we were compelled to.
That is the mission which is incomplete.
UPDATE FROM WSJ ON SUBJECT HERE