Is Afghanistan Worth Fighting For?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said back on September 3, 2009 that the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting for and signaled that he would be willing to send more troops if necessary. Back during the Spring there were 21,000 additional troops that President Obama sent to Afghanistan. Gates said they should be given a chance to succeed. He said the war in Afghanistan isn't slipping through the administration's fingers. General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, is supposed to submit a recommendation in regards to troop increases. McChrystal stated on Monday August 31, 2009 that there needed to be a change in strategy in order for the U.S. to win the war in Afghanistan. Recent polls have shown public skepticism in regards to the war in Afghanistan. August was one of the deadliest months when it came to casualties among U.S. troops. Many Americans have been questioning the benefits in continuing the war since the number of U.S. casualties has risen in recent months. Leftist activists as well as conservative columnist George Will have been calling for the U.S. to wind down the war in Afghanistan.

Is Afghanistan worth fighting for? Most Americans wouldn't deny that the U.S. military needed to send troops to Afghanistan to dismantle Al-Qaeda and the Taliban immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The problem is our troops are still in Afghanistan and lately the Taliban is making a comeback. Also, Osama bin Laden has never been captured. Rumor has it that Bin Laden is hiding in the Tora Bora Mountains along the Pakistani border. I don't believe most Americans are necessary anti-war but they don't like for the U.S. to be engaged in a protracted war where it seems the U.S. isn't making much progress. Is Afghanistan worth our blood and treasure?

I totally agree with the top Afghan commander General Stanley McChrystal that we need a change of strategy if we're going to win the war in Afghanistan. I will submit that if the Pentagon doesn't totally revamp the U.S. strategy in order to win the war, then the military should pull all the troops out of Afghanistan. It's senseless for us to remain in Afghanistan just to be policemen to the Afghan people. It's not worth the price in blood and treasure. We must do whatever is necessary to crush the opposition to win the war. That's what the U.S. and her allies did to both Germany and Japan during World War II. We brought those two countries down before we engaged in rebuilding both of those countries. What's the benefit in training Afghan security forces in policing their own country as long as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are still a threat?

What shoudl be our strategy? First of all, we need to totally destroy all the poppy fields in Afghanistan. That's one way to cripple the funding that supports Al-Qaeda. We also need to freeze all the funding that goes toward supporting terrorism. Some of the poppy fields are being destroyed. We need to continue that process of eradicating the poppy fields. We also need to use air power at a relentless pace to take down all the Al-Qaeda strongholds. There are some strongholds that need to be decimated. We also need to search for Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. He was the perpetrator behind the terrorist attacks and he needs to be tried in a military tribunal for all the murders that took place on September 11. A military tribunal needs to be established by the U.S. Congress to indict Osama bin Laden and all the Al-Qaeda suspects that planned and took part in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

I've said before that it wasn't possible for there to be a democracy in Afghanistan. I still stand by those words. The Afghan people don't know anything but a military dictatorship. Afghanistan is a Muslim country and a Muslim-dominated country isn't going to be democratic. Radical Muslims don't believe in democracy. Also I believe the Afghan people aren't willing to pay the price themselves to fight for freedom. They've been ruled for so long they don't know how to establish a democratic/republican form of government. In order to have a republican form of government with democratic principles the people must share a common set of values as well as they must possess discipline and self-restraint. Self-government requires responsibility and a common set of shared values among its people. There's too much turmoil in Afghanistan. Democracy will never work there.

It's time for the Defense Department to make a choice. Either we totally revamp our strategy in Afghanistan for a victory or we should pull all our troops out. Enough is enough. Eight years is too long. We can't exhaust all our resources in Afghanistan. There's other Al-Qaeda hideouts in other places we need to destroy. The military needs to take the handcuffs off our troops and allow them to use whatever force is necessary to destroy the terrorists. The military needs to stop these silly rules of engagement. Either we change our strategy and declare a mandate for victory or we leave Afghanistan.