13 Years Of War -- And Still No End In Sight

Yesterday marked the 13th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan (started by George Bush on October 7th of 2001). That makes it the longest continuing war in the history of the United States. And what has been accomplished? Almost nothing -- unless you count the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and many more innocent civilians as some kind of accomplishment (I don't).

We did kick the Taliban out of power, but we replaced it with a weak and corrupt government that is sure to be overthrown the minute that we withdraw our troops (still about 30,000 U.S. military in that country). I don't count that as an accomplishment either -- especially since we have recently signed an agreement to stay in Afghanistan to prop up that government (perhaps for many more years as any kind of victory seems impossible at this point). President Obama had promised we would leave Afghanistan by the end of this year, but now there is no timetable for a withdrawal.

How long is it going to take before our federal government understands that, while our troops are the best at fighting a conventional war, they are neither trained for nor very good at "nation-building". We should have learned that lesson in Vietnam, but evidently we didn't (or we have a very short memory). The U.S. is in a no-win situation in Afghanistan. It's time to declare "victory" and bring our troops home -- all of them.

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Perhaps there has been one thing accomplished by the fighting in Afghanistan. It seems to have convinced an overwhelming majority of Americans that women can play a much larger role in our military -- even in combat. Note in the chart below that currently only 15% say giving women a larger role in our military was a bad thing. About 79% disagree -- with 49% saying it has been a good thing and another 30% saying it has made no difference in our military capability.

The chart was made from information in a recent Rasmussen Poll (done on October 1st and 2nd of a random national sample of 1,000 likely voters, with a margin of error of 3 points.