Afghan War Accomplishments Are Not Sustainable

I have been saying for quite a while now that we are just spinning our wheels in Afghanistan. The few accomplishments we have seen are not sustainable, and the puppet government we installed will not survive once we leave.

I am not trying to denigrate the United States military. Noboby in the world is better at fighting a conventional war than this country's military. But that is not what they've been asked to do. Instead we are asking our military to be an occupation force and try its hand at nation-building -- neither of which any military is very good at.  We should have learned this from our mis-adventure in Vietnam, or from the Soviet's failure in Afghanistan, but we didn't.

And since we didn't learn from history, we have spent the last 10 years proving it all over again -- and once again most of the politicians are too stubborn to admit they made a mistake and correct it by withdrawing our troops. The president is considering withdrawing about 5,000 soldiers this summer. That is not nearly enough. He should keep his promise and have all our troops withdrawn by the end of this year.

Finally though, it looks like at least a few politicians are beginning to see the truth. The following is part of an article in the Washington Post (and I urge you to read the entire article). The Post says:


The hugely expensive U.S. attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan has had only limited success and may not survive an American withdrawal, according to the findings of a two-year congressional investigation to be released Wednesday.


The report calls on the administration to rethink urgently its assistance programs as President Obama prepares to begin drawing down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer.


The report, prepared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority staff, comes as Congress and the American public have grown increasingly restive about the human and economic cost of the decade-long war and reflects growing concerns about Obama’s war strategy even among supporters within his party.


The report describes the use of aid money to stabilize areas the military has cleared of Taliban fighters — a key component of the administration’s counterinsurgency strategy — as a short-term fix that provides politically pleasing results. But it says that the enormous cash flows can overwhelm and distort local culture and economies, and that there is little evidence the positive results are sustainable.


One example cited in the report is the Performance-Based Governors Fund, which is authorized to distribute up to $100,000 a month in U.S. funds to individual provincial leaders for use on local expenses and development projects. In some provinces, it says, “this amount represents a tidal wave of funding” that local officials are incapable of “spending wisely.”


Because oversight is scanty, the report says, the fund encourages corruption. Although the U.S. plan is for the Afghan government to eventually take over this and other programs, it has neither the management capacity nor the funds to do so.


The report also warns that the Afghan economy could slide into a depression with the inevitable decline of the foreign military and development spending that now provides 97 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.