Revisiting Afghanistan

I thought it might be instructive to revisit Afghanistan as we sit on the verge of (perhaps) electing a new president who feels our efforts there need to be increased. 

Even after our “withdrawal” we continue to spend millions of dollars a day in nation building (let me be clear, the primary job the military should ALWAYS be the destruction of nations NOT the “building” of them).  We apparently continue to spend money and blood in Afghanistan because a small group of international criminals (al-Qaeda) used that as a base of operations over a decade ago.  The US military estimates that there may be a little as 50 al-Qaeda members currently in Afghanistan, yet we are still there.  While America itself is in need of “nation building” we have spent over $443 billion dollars in Afghanistan since 2001, and it has cost over 1800 American lives and almost 16K in American injuries all to make sure that this small band of international criminals don’t set up shop there in the future.  The Pew Trust reports that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed more to growth in U.S. debt than any other policy since 2001 except the Bush tax cuts.

We fight al-Qaeda like they are a standing army when they are really more like the mafia.  They can set up shop instantly, practically anywhere in the World (including inside the U.S.) and fighting them like they are a traditional enemy is inefficient and stupid.  On the other hand it plays very nicely into Washington’s culture of corporate welfare and crony capitalism and I suspect that beyond the insane Republican sub-culture of the neo-cons that is sadly, often what Afghanistan and the “war on terror” is really about, pork and lining the pockets of friends and supporters.

As much as I would love to “hope” that Mr. Obama’s 52^nd birthday be spent out of public office I live in real fear of Mr. Romney and his fleet of neo-cons sailing into the White House.