Finish What We Started

Afghanistan. The Graveyard of Empires. Obama's Vietnam. That's the long and short of the chatter on the left, and pay no attention to the gyrations of conservatives as they try to use this conundrum to their advantage.

It doesn't matter to either side that Afghanistan is a mess of the previous president's making. The push for Barack Obama to pull out of that country, such as it is, has grown steadily since Inauguration Day. It should, and from all the signs will, be ignored.

Only those interested in political gamesmanship at any cost would argue the notion that George W. Bush completely neglected the Afghan conflict. The only time it appeared on his radar was when it served his own purposes to exploit the (friendly-fire) death of football star Pat Tillman. Yes, it's safe to say that we have never given Afghanistan much of a chance.

Iraq is a war we need to end. Afghanistan is a war we need to finish. It would be near unholy to leave those poor people in the same mess that Republican leaders left them in 20 years ago. When we did that in the post-Soviet era, the seeds of al-Qaida were planted, and 9/11 was the result. Listen to your history teacher.

If this puts me on the same page as some conservatives, well, ouch. I take this position with very little optimism. The Karzai government is damn near as corrupt as the Bush administration was. The military's top commander there, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was chiefly responsible for the coverup in Tillman's untimely death. The poppy trade ensures that the "bad guys" will retain the power on the ground.

The Taliban are tough as nails, and the war-weary populace has grown indifferent (on a sunny day) to our presence. And it is, of course, the Graveyard of Empires. Our only real hope is to prove to them that America - despite the Dick Cheneys of the world - is no empire. We are not the Russians, or the British, or the Romans.

If they can be convinced of that, they may well cling to the democracy for which many of our troops have given their lives, and turn their backs on the extremism of our enemies. This administration has a very brief window of time in which to make that case to both Afghanis and Americans.

Something good could still come from our sacrifice if we try. By abandoning Afghanistan, we would guarantee the exact opposite.

pH 9.29.o9