Sadly

The reason why this is Charlie Wilson's war is because it never ended despite the Soviets leaving Afghanistan. We made a profound blunder in covering the countryside with armaments and then ignoring these people in their pleas for help rebuilding despite our promise to do so. What we got was an angry mob who over several decades built up the nerve to come over here and bomb us. Afghans may not have carried out the 9/11 bombings but they certainly did not stop it when it was within their ability to assist.

Now there is nothing fair about our predicament and the policy choices themselves are stark. There is very little fun about Afghanistan in policy. We could leave now and let the country flounder and possibly fail again only triggering more hatred and terrorism later. Or we could stay at present levels and provide mild security and carry out Al-Qaeda targeting, which is mostly over with anyway. Or we could "escalate" as you say and provide maximum security, ensure more casualties and probably ruin any chance at solving the basic necessities problem facing the people there.

The solution to me is actually none of these. There cannot be an aftermath to war and there not be nation building or rebuilding in this case. While the Taliban stands against some of our more beloved principles, they are not terrorists. They have aligned with terrorists in the past but we have the opportunity to permanently separate them by allowing the Taliban to be an autonomous political and social movement that it is, not unlike the present Republican party here. While we must provide security for the government until they are able to secure the country themselves, we must also attempt to rebuild what has been damaged. The fight against Al-Qaeda is largely won for now and if anything has moved to Pakistan. We could benefit from more special forces troops but who will we send? We don't have that many to begin with and they just won two wars for us after limitless deployments. We could also benefit from NGO assistance in rebuilding rather than only allowing US military to render aid. Let the Afghans figure out democracy if they want it. What we need to provide is the ability for them to defend themselves through training of a solid police and military.

---

by: Tiderion @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 22:14:26 PM CDT