Brandon Friedmanhas posted the positive reaction of his organization, VoteVets.org, to Obama's statement that he will introduce 17,000 more troops into Afghanistan.
Now, I understand we're a progressive community, and I understand that military solutions aren't as popular with this group as they may be with certain other political constituencies. I understand that there should be a debate about our Afghanistan policy, and whether it will be effective.
But it's time to make one thing clear: continuation of use of military force in Afghanistan is entirely justified, and is not a continuation of American imperialism.
More below.
Let us take the argument that we lack the moral authority to be in Afghanistan, such as this one advanced by dancewater:
I wonder how you can have "democratic reforms" while under foreign military occupation..... now, you can claim that we did this in Germany and Japan, but for starters we had some moral authority to go into those countries and destroy them (they either attacked us or declared war on us). This is not true in Afghanistan or Iraq - there were some criminals in Afghanistan that attacked us, but that is it.
It is like bombing Murphy NC to get Eric Rudolph. A stupid idea, that will cost lots of money, cause a lot of deaths, and increase blowback.
Wrong. Wrong on so many levels. Now, the analogy might be correct if the entire city council and population of Murphy, NC was knowingly sheltering Eric Rudolph and controlling his actions, but otherwise, the "few bad apples" argument with regard to Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan is just about as laughable as that of Abu Ghraib and the Bush Administration. The Taliban knowingly sheltered and assisted Osama bin Laden as his extralegal organization committed an act of war on the United States.
Bottom line: we have the moral authority to continue our military presence in Afghanistan. The world gave us that authority after 9/11, and we should not refrain from using it, especially as Afghanistan is still a NATO mission.
Moving on, then: let's take the argument that military force can only be part of the problem, not the solution--as expressed here by An Affirming Flame:
US troops and NATO troops are a huge part of the problem in Afghanistan.
The solution isn't to completely withdraw our influence from the region.
The solution is to withdraw our troops and massively increase our humanitarian and diplomatic initiatives.
Sounds like a noble progressive vision--except for the small problem that the actual facts on the ground doom it to abject failure. It's time to keep in mind that the United States was, in fact, taking no active role whatsoever in Afghanistan when the Taliban were sheltering Osama bin Laden as they engaged in the worst ever terrorist strike on U.S. soil, so wondering how military force could possibly make the problem worse is counterproductive.
The Taliban are religious fundamentalists whose end goal is to eliminate all influences of Western cultural freedoms so they can stone suspected adulterers and imprison men who shave with absolute impunity. That's who these people are. So go ahead. Provide all the humanitarian influence you want. They'll either reject it or confiscate it to support their murderous militias. Humanitarian assistance will only succeed is there is a military presence enforcing its proper and equitable distribution.
Believing that no military solution is justifiable is as unrealistic and wrongheaded as believing that the military is the solution to everything. But I share President OBama's view. I'm not opposed to all wars; I'm opposed to dumb wars.
It's time to face reality regarding the Afghanistan situation. We can end our involvement in Afghanistan, let the Taliban take back over and reimpose one of the most oppressive social regimes this world has ever seen and let them support terrorist activity again, using predator drones to weaken them where necessary to ensure our security;
OR
We can attempt to use our military to guarantee enough stability to allow our humanitarian efforts to gain enough traction to show people that there are alternatives to the Taliban, and thus weaken their influence.
Now, I know what option I'd rather pick--even if it's a violation of the "military force = anti-progressive" mindset that many of us cling to.