I’ve decided it’s time to get out of Afghanistan. There’s nothing to be done if we don’t have a legitimite government there, and with Abdullah Abdullah likely to pull out of the run-off election, and following the massive fraud of the first election, it’s clear we don’t. Even if we did, it’s not clear that there’s much to be gained. There will always be unstable areas in the world for terrorists to assemble, and serving as an occupying force only provides assistance to terrorist recruiting strategies. Moving forward, we should utilize narrow tactical action militarily, admit that combating terrorism is not a war, but rather the pursuit of a criminal network, and then utilize soft power through political diplomacy, encourage human rights, and provide financial aid aimed at increasing access to education, and strengthening the economies of the developing world in order to ease the chaos and hostility that rise during economic turmoil.
Tags: abdullah, afghanistan, al qaeda, election, run off, taliban, war, withdrawal
November 6, 2009 at 5:15 pm |
Been a long time Big blue. Just letting you know I’m back up and running as of last week. I’m looking to get about two to three post a week up. Nothing near what I was doing during the election, but hopefully I won’t get burned out as easy either. I put my analysis of your embarrassing defeat up on Wednesday.