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Afghanistan named second most corrupt country; it is time to leave
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The group Transparency International recently released its survey of corrupt countries. Afghanistan was ranked the second most corrupt, being only slightly better than Somalia (The U.S. was ranked 19th least corrupt). Little is likely to change in that government, since President Karzai recently retained his position in a disputed election.
For 2963 days now, we have been at war in Afghanistan. The war began with the best intentions: it was to eliminate terrorist activities and camps in the country, capture al-Qaeda leaders there, and to overthrow the Taliban. After the 9/11 attacks, the war made sense. That was then; the objectives now are muddled at best. Many al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama Bin Laden, have eluded our troops. The Taliban was overthrown, but are now re-surging. Our options are becoming very limited. Nation building does not work, especially when the government of that country is corrupt, and our military has become stretched nearly to its limits. All the while, our resources have been drying up.
This war has come at a high price. So far, we have spent 227 billion dollars in Afghanistan, with a proposed 73 billion to be spent there next fiscal year. There have been over 4500 casualties and 900 deaths of American troops. Meanwhile, almost 6600 Afghan civilians have died. These totals do not include our misguided detour through Iraq (which has cost 683 billion dollars so far, plus over 31,000 casualties and 4000 American deaths, and around 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths).
With General McChrystal requesting more troops, he is increasingly sounding like General Westmoreland in the 1960s. Similarly, support for his war is steadily declining. Over the past decades, Americans have become too enamored with military power. In The Limits of Power, Andrew Bacevich writes, “The enemy of realism is hubris… [which] finds expression in an outsized confidence in the efficacy of American power as an instrument to reshape the global order” (p.7). With a key decision on the course of the war forthcoming from the current administration, it is time to face reality in Afghanistan. After eight years, we have achieved practically nothing, and no real success is on the horizon. There is no military solution to Afghanistan, which has a history of fiercely defending itself. The troop decision then should be an easy one: bring our soldiers home. The hubris that sustains this war has become blind to the implications of a war with no clear strategy. The War on Terror has made us vulnerable and inflexible. As Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “To the end of history…social orders will probably destroy themselves in the effort to prove that they are indestructible” (quoted in Reinhold Niebuhr: Theologian of Public Life, edited by Larry Rasmussen, p.107).
For more information: On military casualties: look here, (there is a link on the page to casualties in Iraq); On civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq; On the financial costs of the wars; For a few thought provoking articles on Afghanistan: look here, here, and here.
Afterword: This is not an affront to the many brave soldiers who have fought and sacrificed themselves for our country. I greatly appreciate and thank them for their courage and efforts.
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