We invaded Afghanistan more than seven years ago. We have not broken the back of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We have not captured or killed Osama bin Laden. We don’t even have an escalation strategy, much less an exit strategy. An honest assessment of the situation, taking into account the woefully corrupt and ineffective Afghan government led by the hapless Hamid Karzai, would lead inexorably to such terms as fiasco and quagmire.
-Bob Herbert, NY Times
Herbert continues, adding that instead of pulling out, we are beginning to, "double down."
Can history act as a guide, for a President and staff who are self-professed students of times past?
Can the new sense of inclusiveness in government also include a realistic argument on our chances for success, and continued costs of failure, in this hostile land? Can it include a realistic snapshot of our men and women being shipped over by the planefull, without even a clear mandate or a clear set of directives? Can we have a realistic conversation with ourselves, as a country, and redefine our new priorities as a weakened nation hobbled by its own hubris? Can we begin to understand that alliances in Afghanistan shift like the sand dunes of Arabia; loyalty is given and taken away at the snap of a gunshot; and tribal loyalties will never lie with a Western force? This great shifting society is also a society of unbelievable resilience; resilience that we, as a nation, should have great envy for; the people of Afghanistan have endured, and are prepared to endure, such a higher level of misfortune than we, even sitting in an unemployment line, could ever imagine.
Again, only history can, and will, judge our actions.....
