Can We Leave Afghanistan Now ?

An American soldier stationed in Afghanistan left his base about 3:00am and entered the homes of innocent civilians (at least three homes), killing 16 people and wounding several others. It is not known why he did such a terrible thing, and it probably doesn't matter at this point. Whatever the reason, it's a huge setback in a war that was already impossible to win.

President Obama has called the Afghan president and apologized, but I doubt that will have much effect on the people of Afghanistan. For them, it is just another in a long list of tragedies they have suffered at the hands of foreign troops. For them, it is just one more reason to despise Americans.

While this soldier must be held responsible for his reprehensible actions, I blame George Bush and Dick Cheney for creating this mess in the first place. They looked at the first George Bush's success in kicking out the Iraqis from Kuwait, and figured they could do the same thing with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They were foolhardy, and failed to realize that nation-building (which is what they initiated in Afghanistan) is vastly different from a short and limited military action. They ignored the long history of Afghanistan that showed many nations had tried to do that in that country and failed (including world powers like Great Britain and the Soviet Union).

Our soldiers were put into a situation they could not win, and then expected to do the impossible. And it was done to satisfy the egos and political ambitions of a few politicians. And what has been accomplished? We have killed a lot of people (including innocent civilians), made a lot of new enemies, and installed an extremely corrupt and misogynistic government (which is unlikely to survive our departure). And we have lost a lot of American soldiers.

I would like to think that we have learned that we cannot impose a democracy in a foreign country with military power. But we didn't learn that from Vietnam, and probably won't learn it from Afghanistan. But whether we have learned anything or not from Bush's ill-advised military blunder, it is time to get our troops out of Afghanistan. There is no good that can come from staying longer, and as we have seen, there is a lot of damage that can be done.

It's over. What can be done has been done. It is now up to the Afghan people to decide their own fate. We cannot do it for them.