[BRIGADE] PJB: Unwinnable War?
Published: Fri, 08/14/09
by Patrick J. Buchanan
August 14, 2009
"Taliban Are Winning: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising
Casualties." Thus ran the startling headline on the front-page of
The Wall Street Journal. The lead paragraph ran thus:
"The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top
American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its
strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of
troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city
of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home."
Source for the story: Gen. Stanley McChrystal himself.
The general's spokesman in Kabul was swift to separate him from
that headline and lead. They "go too far," he said: The general
does not believe the Taliban are winning or "gaining the upper
hand."
Nevertheless, in the eighth year of America's war, the newly
arrived field commander concedes that U.S. casualties, now at
record levels, will continue to be high or go higher, and that our
primary mission is no longer to run down and kill Taliban but to
defend the Afghan population.
What went wrong?
Though U.S. force levels are higher than ever, the U.S. military
situation is worse than ever. Though President Karzai is expected
to win re-election, he is regarded as the ineffectual head of a
corrupt regime. Though we have trained an Afghan army and police
force of 220,000, twice that number are now needed. The Taliban are
operating not only in the east, but in the north and west, and are
taking control of the capital of the south, Kandahar.
NATO's response to Obama's request for more troops has been
pathetic.
Europeans want to draw down the troops already sent. And Western
opinion has soured on the war.
A poll commissioned by The Independent found 52 percent of Britons
wanting to pull out and 58 percent believing the war is
"unwinnable."
U.S. polls, too, have turned upside down.
A CBS-New York Times survey in late July found 33 percent saying
the war was going well and 57 percent saying it was going badly or
very badly. In a CNN poll in early August, Americans, by 54 percent
to 41 percent, said they oppose the Afghan war that almost all
Americans favored after 9-11 and Obama said in 2008 was the right
war for America to fight.
The president is now approaching a decision that may prove as
fateful for him and his country as was the one made by Lyndon
Johnson to send the Marines ashore at Da Nang in December 1965.
Obama confronts a two-part question:
If, after eight years of fighting, the Taliban is stronger, more
capable and closer to victory than it has ever been, what will it
cost in additional U.S. troops, casualties, years and billions to
turn this around? And what is so vital to us in that wilderness
land worth another eight years of fighting, bleeding and dying,
other than averting the humiliation of another American defeat?
From Secretary Gates to Gen. Petraeus, U.S. military and political
leaders have been unanimous that the Afghan war does not lend
itself to a military victory. Unfortunately, the Taliban does seem
to believe in a military victory and triumphal return to power, and
imposing upon the United States the same kind of defeat their
fathers imposed upon the Soviet Union.
Whatever we may say of them, Taliban fighters have shown a greater
willingness to die for a country free of us Americans than our
Afghan allies have shown to die for the future we Americans
envision for them.
In days, McChrystal is to provide the president with an assessment
of what will be required for America to prevail.
Almost surely, the general's answer will be that success will
require thousands more U.S. troops, billions more dollars, many
more years of casualties. And if Obama yet believes this is a war
of necessity we cannot lose, and he must soldier on, his decision
will sunder his party and country, and put at risk his presidency.
If he refuses to deepen the U.S. commitment, it is hard to see how
the United States can avoid what is at best a bloody stalemate.
But if he chooses to cut America's losses and get out, Obama risks
a strategic debacle that will have our enemies rejoicing and open
him up to the charge that he, the first African-American president,
lost the war that America began as retribution for 9-11 and fought
to prevent a second 9-11.
Had we gone into Afghanistan in 2001, knocked over the Taliban,
driven out al-Qaida and departed, we would not be facing what we do
today.
But we were seduced by the prospect of converting a backward tribal
nation of 25 million, which has resisted every empire to set foot
on its inhospitable soil, into a shining new democracy that would
be a model for the Islamic world.
Now, whatever Obama decides, we shall pay a hellish price for the
hubris of the nation-builders.
SOURCE: http://buchanan.org/blog/unwinnable-war-1852