Is Afghanistan a lost cause?

Many Americans are struggling right along with the Obama administration about what to do with Afghanistan. We’re weighing the pros and cons of expanding the war or winding it down, and most of us are finding no good answers.

Not everyone is conflicted; there are those who believe the only way to deal with our enemies is with maximum force. Neo-conservatives such as Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, John Bolton and Dick Cheney are big-time hawks, along with their allies in the Senate, Joe Lieberman, John McCain and others.

Neo-cons were the ones who talked the Bush administration into the war in Iraq. Today, their rhetoric toward Iran is belligerent, and they’re pushing hard to send more troops to Afghanistan. Although they like to talk tough, most of them have no military experience themselves.

Their real agenda is to protect Israel and maintain control of political and economic resources in the Middle East. They play for bigger stakes than most of us would even begin to understand.

As I’ve listened to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s plan to add 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan, it sounds an awful lot like nation-building. I don’t see how you can instill nationalism, democracy, structure, etc., all those things a civilized nation values, in a country steeped in tribal warfare.

Nation-building was the quagmire we got into in Iraq; compared to Afghanistan, Iraq was a piece of cake.

Lately my confidence in McChrystal’s judgment has waned. Apparently he actually wanted 80,000 troops to begin with. I was also taken aback when I learned it was he who authorized the report that Pat Tillman was killed by enemy fire. He allowed that story to be released to the media and it was used to strengthen public support for war. When the truth finally came out, we learned the former NFL star was killed by friendly fire. Tillman’s family continues to have no use for the general.

My fears about Afghanistan were confirmed last week by the resignation from his post in Afghanistan by U.S. Foreign Service Officer and ex-Marine Capt. Matthew Hoh. He said the drawn-out occupation no longer makes any sense nor offers any reasonable hope for success.

He pointed out the Sept. 11 attacks were primarily planned and originated in Western Europe and the threat from al-Qaida cannot be tied to traditional geographical and political boundaries.

Hoh also said that in 2001 the people of Afghanistan had grown to hate the Taliban’s harsh fundamentalism, and thus were cooperative with U.S. and NATO forces. Today, they regard our eight-year presence as a foreign military occupation.

We need to be searching for and killing al-Qaida in a number of places, not just Afghanistan. We don’t need to fight the Taliban, a bunch of cruel, lawless tribesmen engaged in a 35-year civil war.

The world is full of people like them, and we can’t go everywhere to fight them. I’ve been reminded several times that I should be willing to fight people like this because of the way they treat women. If we were to fight every country that mistreats women, we’d be at it for a century.

I’ve read books written by Islamic women refugees, and women who are members of Saudi Arabia’s royal family, and I am disgusted at the way these women are treated by Muslim men.

Afghan women are the victims of cruelty along with women in other countries like Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Women are abused, mutilated, murdered and treated worse than animals in many nations around the world, but we can’t possibly invade every country and rescue them.

I wish something could be done, but I’m not willing to sacrifice our own men and women to save them.

The United States is committed to hunting down al-Qaida around the world. I’d rather see the money we spend for troop deployment spent on beefed-up CIA intelligence, special operations forces and contract mercenary soldiers.

The greatest fear is that terrorists will get access to nuclear missiles in Pakistan, but I’m concerned that our prevention methods are not working. From the number of bombings and casualties occurring in Pakistan recently, it doesn’t appear that having our troops in Afghanistan is offering much protection.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Afghanistan itself may be a lost cause and our troops should not have to put their lives on the line for a country that has never established security or stability on its own.

I don’t know what Obama is going to do about this war, but I now know what I’d do. I’d get the heck out of there as soon as possible.