Obama's Decision To Stay in Afghanistan | National Catholic Reporter

Obama's Decision To Stay in Afghanistan | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Incrementally, Obama made the right decision - it was the obvious choice as presented by his commanders.  It is likely the right decision on a human level in the short term for Afghan civilians.  His only alternative would have been to cut and run, knowing that the Taliban would quickly move into an obvious power vacuum and the retribution would be as terrible, if not more terrible, than that visited on American collaborators in South Vietnam after the US withdrawl.  Of course, the Communists re-educated the collaborators, the Taliban will likely kill them.  Vietnam has turned into a fairly decent place and even the killling fields of Cambodia are closed. Afghanistan may not yield to modernity so quickly. It depends on the courage of those left behind.  Of course, we could spend a protracted time offering asylum to any of our friends and all women who want a better life - let an all male Afghanistan survive without women.



What is more troubling is the stated aim of the continued opposition to use a base in Afghanistan for continued drone strikes by the CIA.  If you don't like drone warfare, the continuation is not good news. While it is better than carpet bombind civilians, it is blunt tool that makes us no friends.



I still believe that the answer in the region is boundary adjustment from Palestine to Kashmire.  Let smaller ethnic states like Uzbekistan and the former Uzbek SSR unite and let them pick a supporting power to defend them if they cannot defend themselves.  We can then focus on whether to leave the Pastun section alone, let Pakistan support it (which may be a booby prize) or whether we want to subdue it as a danger to the United States (which is hardly semetrical warfare, except for the fact that the military does not have the stones to commit to total war against such an area - a war that would have to be almost genocidal to accomplish its aims).  Obama should ask Wes Clark to step in here.  He is the most experienced negotiator to stop genocidal religious and civil war.  He certainly can't do worse than current policy, which is as much on Pentagon as it is on Obama.