A new
poll confirms a trend that began last year, with nearly two-thirds of Americans no longer believing the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. To the question "Considering the costs vs. the benefits to the United States, do you think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, or not?" the
Washington Post-ABC random national sample of 1,005 adults found 64 percent in the "not" category. Asked if the United States should withdraw combat troops this summer, 73 percent said yes, but only 39 percent said they think it will.
Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan by virtue of rigged elections, wants outside forces to leave as well, or so he says for public consumption. How he would manage to maintain power after foreign troops departed is hard to imagine.
In fact, some combat troops almost certainly will be withdrawn in July, the date President Obama set 16 months ago to begin bringing them home. But how many is the question. Since March 2009, the administration has added 66,000 military personnel to those already fighting in Afghanistan. In the decade-long conflict there, 1502 U.S. military personnel have died, 852 of them since Obama became President. NATO forces have lost 864 personnel since the war began. The toll among Afghans, both of civilians and armed insurgents, is unknown. That goes as well for Pakistanis, who have had the war brought to them by the Taliban and U.S. drones. What is known is that innocents are killed quite frequently, as the NATO bombing of children two weeks ago showed. As usual, apologies are made. But they do not quell the fury such incidents naturally engender.
Despite the claims for progress against insurgents in Afghanistan, the commander of U.S. forces there, Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that he hasn't decided how many troops to withdraw in July:
Petraeus said that he’ll “provide options and a recommendation” to President Obama for numbers of troops to come home this year. He cautioned that as the transition to Afghan control for security in 2014 commences, “we’ll get one shot at transition, and we need to get it right.” Petraeus repeated his mantra — well-known from Iraq before Afghanistan — that security gains in Afghanistan are real but “fragile and reversible.” ...
Sen. John McCain, the top Republican on the committee, said it would be wiser for the U.S. to “reinvest troops from secure to insecure regions in Afghanistan.” Petraeus first hinted that he’d adopt such an approach in an August interview with Danger Room to troop drawdowns. Testifying next to Petraeus, Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told the committee that some troops will “likely be reinvested in other geographic or functional areas such as training” the Afghan security forces.
Most observers—expert and amateur—don't believe the numbers withdrawn this year will be large. Although Petraeus expressed optimism about successes, the number of bomb attacks by insurgent forces in Afghanistan have risen sharply in the past year. Some analysts argue that, despite the increase, the attacks are less effective than previously.
When the harsh Afghan winter ends, stepped up fighting will begin again. Ultimately, the stated goal is to have the Afghan army and police handle security matters, and training has been going on at a furious pace. But even if the number of Afghans—well above 300,000—can be trained and kept from deserting or defecting, as so many thousands have in the past, the cost of keeping them in uniform for the impoverished country is greater than its entire gross domestic product.
Which is why it's unlikely all U.S. combat troops will come home before someone else occupies the Oval Office. As Spencer Ackerman writes:
Learn well this phrase: “Joint Facilities.” That’s how Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy described the likely places in Afghanistan that will host residual troops after 2014, when the Afghans are supposed to take charge of security. And if you can figure out the difference between “joint facilities” and “permanent bases,” please explain.
As teased last week by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, there’s a U.S. delegation in Kabul this week to begin talks with the Afghan government about what a post-2014 U.S. presence in Afghanistan ought to look like. Flournoy told a Senate panel on Tuesday morning that the Obama administration is out for an “enduring, long-term commitment to Afghanistan and the region,” which she called an “important message to emphasize as we begin the transition process” to Afghan security control by 2014.
That doesn’t necessarily mean a large U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan after 2014. But it does mean some U.S. troop presence, if the Afghans “request” it. (Raise your hand if you think the Afghans will make that decision totally free of U.S. influence.)
Another few permanent overseas bases to add to the U.S. total. While our schools and infrastructure and social services crumble, and states discuss the possibility of saving money by dumping presidential primaries, America continues to fight a war its people think is not worth the cost in blood and treasure, and our government arms autocrats who turn the weapons we sell them against people seeking democracy.
This raises the old questions: Who benefits from such policies? Who pays?