After a decade in Afghanistan, the United States rushes for the exit

It's clear from being in Afghanistan (I've spent a couple years there, and more in Iraq) that the Afghan government and security forces won't be ready to take over in 2013. Or 2014.

However, it's a mistake to think that should keep us there longer, because we're actually funding our enemies by our large presence. The Taliban and local militias make as much money from tolls, security contracts, and corruption, funded by the US and ISAF, as they do from taxing the poppy harvest. The local warlords, Taliban commanders, and others are the actual power on the ground outside Kabul; the corrupt and ineffective Kabul government is funded from US largesse as well, just a bit more directly.

It's in the US's power to eliminate these sources of funding overnight; substantially leave at the end of the summer 2012 fighting season, with only SOF and a limited counterterrorism capability remaining, if anything, and solve the poppy problem, by either decriminalizing drugs or by buying all poppies directly from farmers for conversion into medical opiates (the Italian Red Cross plan).

Afghans know how to fight; they just don't know how to run a central state. With no external source of funding, the war in Afghanistan will be like one of the random other conflicts around the world; local and not in the US national interest to intervene.

Let the interpreters who served honorably with US forces have green cards, and operate UAVs to strike at any Al Qaeda training camps, and turn Afghanistan into the George W. Bush Special Operations Training Center and Live-Fire Range. Just don't try to build a modern nation state where even the citizens don't want one.

We are finished! It's over, and the only one's left crying are the mother's whose sons have been blown up by some road side bomb in a meaningless, fruitless war. Bin Laden is dead, it's over. We don't owe you, the U.N., the world, or Afghanistan anything. We never did. The 15 different ethnic groups in Afghanistan can sort it out for themselves. The Taliban are a reality and parts of Afghanistan embrace their ideals. No one can fight that. You can't fight an ideal any more than you can fight the wind. That war in Afghanistan has cost my country too much blood and treasure. It was a quagmire, and it was unwinable because there was nothing to win in the first place, and it's over. Maybe in 30 years venture capitalists can go into Afghanistan and open up Nike athletic shoe sweatshops like what happened 30 years after we fled from Vietnam. History will work itself out, and only time can beat the Taliban and win in Afghanistan, the same way that time beat the communists.

It is one thing to liberate a people from an oppressive tyrant.

It is another thing to bring a Medieval Society stuck in Neolithic Technology, Tribalism, treating women like breeding animal stock caged at home, and a religion that holds nostalgia for the 7th Century => and bring it to the 21st century.

Prior to 9/11 Afghanistan had under 20% literacy. No running water. No sewage and sanitation. No refrigerators. No electricity beyond Kabul and large cities. And it still has biblical diseases like Leprosy, TB, polio and Smallpox that were treated by biblical prescriptions.

The US Army is a fighting force. Using it to modernize and educate Afghanistan is like using a jet fighter engine afterburner to dry clothes hanging on a line.

When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

IT is the wrong tool for the job and it was destined to end badly.

Let them remain in the 7th century where they are happiest. But bomb them from the air like lightning bolts from Zeus when they get dangerous.

The US needs to get out of the Middle East right now and stop all these wars that are destroying us morally and financially. The Israel-firsters are already trying to prepare us for the war in Iran, using the identical tactics they used for Iraq. The American people will not take it this time. Never again.

The US must review the fundamental goal and philosophy of its foreign policy.
First, the age of invading, bombing and killing the population of foreign countries because the latter do not share its political philosophy and its dreams is gone. The US must adopt a peaceful, arms-free and violence-free approach when dealing with other countries.
Second, the US must accept plurality of political systems.
Third, the US must resort to negotiation for resolving its conflicts with other countries and not to use naked force and sanction.
Fourth, the US must not do to other countries what it does not wish other countries to do to it.
Fifth, the US must not pursue a policy based on Israel's interests only.
Sixth, the US must not set as its primary goal to enrich the few American arms manufacturers.

The Americans are on a downward spiral because of their actions...

I'd expect nothing less, since history has thought many times this lesson, but like many nations with a large amount of power - they chose not to read history!

It's funny to me that the worst enemy one can have is - one self!

Military power has limits.

You can beat someone into submission, but you cannot beat someone into adopting your lifestyle.

It's about time the US started nation-building in the US and not Afghanistan. All the Republican hawks who admire Israel haven’t learnt much from the way Israel operates whenever it is bombed – bomb back twice or thrice as much and leave the re-building to someone else (alas, it’s the US which steps in).
It is evident this Afghan nation-building effort is going nowhere. The Afghans, one of the poorest peoples on earth and ones with the lowest levels of education and beliefs in fundamental Islam, are not ready for prime-time democracy or laws that make common sense. As France realized recently, even their army cannot be trusted to turn their weapons on the enemy and not their benefactors. They are beyond hope and investing more US taxes and shedding more American bold is a colossal waste.
It also appears that Taliban cannot be held back when so many of the Afghan people support them. Thus, it’s going against their grain for the US to pursue this endeavor.
Like the Israelis, the US should switch to a new philosophy when it comes to war or terror attacks – attack us and we will unleash a rain of weapons on you.

Do you actually know anything about the history of Afghanistan and Pakistan, or do you just reflexively reach for any interpretation of history that allows you to bitch about the U.S.?

Look, the Afghanistan-Pakistani border is the Durand Line, in effect cease-fire line between Afghanistan and what was at the time (that being 1893) British India. Afghanistan no longer recognizes the line, and since the formation of Pakistan, successive governments have feared that a stable and strong Afghanistan will seek to reclaim the Pashtun-inhabited areas of Pakistan. For at least the past 35 years, the Pakistani ISI has played a crucial part in keeping Afghanistan destabilized. During the Soviet occupation, the CIA provided funding for the Afghan mujehaddin, but lacking local knowledge, let the ISI disburse the money and weapons: the ISI gave it primarily to the groups like Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami, who weren't so militarily effective against the Soviets, but very good at politicking in Quetta and Peshawar, and stabbing other resistance groups in the back. Even before the Najibullah regime fell, Hekmatyar was on a course to turn on other mujehaddin factions. In early 1994, Dostum turned coat (again) and sided with Hekmatyar, and it looked like Hekmatyar and his allies might decisively gain the upper hand. Six months later, the Taliban appear on the scene and within two years they control the Pushtun-majority areas of Afghanistan and they hold Kabul.

Seriously, anytime someone gets close to gaining the upper hand in Afghanistan and perhaps stabilizing the place, the ISI will support a spoiler.

Sorry, but I think they only have the personnel to make trouble.

On (even) a more sad note: America was once the most admired nation in the world. Sadly how it all changed into the diametrically the opposite, in just a few years.

These days many around the world are cheering for China, India and Brazil to save the world!

When the last superpower the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan for 10 years it made an inglorious exit. This time around, history is repeating itself with the US and coalition partners making another inglorious exit. Suffer the Afghan people.

@JEAN MICHEL.What you write is simply false.The US "killed murdered,assassinated,tortured".You can't see the difference between those whom liberated Europe from the nazifascists and the SS.This means that in your case they wasted lives,time,money.It is true that not all those who fight in the US forces are angels.When they landed in Sicily,they executed 73 italian soldiers of the division LIVORNO accused of fighting too wildly and having killed too many US paratroopers.During the D-Day the german soldiers shooting from the bunkers were killed after captured.In VIetnam lieutenanat William Calley killed the inhabithnts of the village of MY LAY accused of helping the viets,while in Iraq they tortured some prisoners of ABU GHRAIB.But this is war,dear friend,and in war the worst folks have the opportunity of showing their true colours.But to extend these limited facts to the responsibility of an entire nation is a slander.The US is the cornerstone of the Westwn Defence,included that of our freedom of defaming them like you are doing.As for VIetnam,it's the poorest country of southeast Asia,thanks to the communist.You paint it like a paradise,where "people is happy where it is":why not move there and enjoy their wealth,their freedom and their fantastic medical system?

What happens in Afghanistan is not an American problem. Stop believing that you are morally superior than the Afghans. They know better than you what is in the best interests of the Afghans. You are thinking like an old grandma.

The US has killed, murdered, assassinated, tortured and mutilated millions of people over the last sixty years. Most of them were unarmed civilians. This is more than enough. Vietnam and the Vietnamese are happy where they are and they would have been happier if the Americans did not invade their country and did not kill and tortured millions of them. Enough of the murdering instinct. The US and the Americans must now learn to live like civilized people in a civilized world.

It's actually all about American arrogance.

America has directly lost 2 trillion dollars with the two wars, and with much more to come through veteran's benefits. So it's not about the money at all; just arrogance...

Well, if one reads your comment from a un-biased point of view, it could turnout to be quite funny.

One could state that American liberties are soon to be back to Stone Age level, and the war is lost, since now you're negotiating with the Taliban (you know, the very people you claim that attacked you back in 2001).

Now ain't that funny?

A job well done?!
Perhaps for a man blinded by patriotism.

With the final defeat of Imperialism sooner, the bigger or biggest powers may be more ready to use talking, diplomacy, negotiation etc. rather than use of gun-boat drone missile forces to bring about changes in small countries.

Always the same story. Same O, Same O ! First in the Phillipines, then Viet Nam, then Beirut, then Iraq, then Afghanistan ...... These jokers have no clue. It is like masturbating looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror.

@Ed the Ed

"Another chickenbrain, maybe a spineless one"

Posting from a trailer park, no doubt.

"when you're wounded and left on afghanistan's plains,
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
an' go to your gawd LIKE A SOLDIER."