This Afghan war is indefensible

My son Ben, who joined the RAF in 2001, always assured us that he'd be three miles up from the Afghan insurgents, so nothing would get to him. He didn't realise that his own side was going to let him down. Ben died three years ago, when the ageing Nimrod spy plane he was flying exploded in mid-air near Kandahar, killing him along with 13 of his colleagues. He was 25 years old.

At home in Somerset, his mother and I heard on the news that a helicopter had come down. When the reports changed to mention a Nimrod, we rang the helpline number. An hour later the doorbell rang. I was in the other room when I heard my wife scream. It feels as if someone has scooped your heart out.

But planes don't explode of their own accord. After a months-long battle with the Ministry of Defence and the RAF over the release of documents relating to the catastrophe, an inquest last year finally ruled that the plane had not been airworthy and the that entire fleet should be grounded.

On leave before he went to Afghanistan, Ben confided in his older brother some of his concerns about the deployment. But when his brother asked him if he really believed that British troops should be there, he replied that the Afghan people had been terrorised by the Taliban for years and that he believed they would be freeing them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/afghanistan-army-casualties

lots of things are indefensible - lots of contradictory things. Darfur is indefensible - so is doing something about it.

Ok?

If it was so VERY important for us to be there, and our troops were SO IMPORTANT to us, we'd be spending the money on the things they NEED, and not funneling it into useless MIC projects while the troops get dirty water from Haliburton.

The divide between words and actions is getting huge.

An accident like that could have happened on a routine training mission over home territory.

I think a strong argument can be made that we shouldn't be in Afghanistan, but the OP doesn't make it. One cannot help but sympathize with the loss of a son, but such is the case in all armed conflicts. Yes, all war is evil, but if that's the thrust of the argument against the Afghan conflict then it is not made relevant in comparison to any other conflict.

The OP stated the Taliban wasn't responsible for the twin towers but acknowledged they let al Qaeda train in their country. In my book aiding & harboring known criminals makes you an accomplice. It may very well be there was an ulterior agenda behind US actions, and one can argue that getting bogged down there for all these years is neither worth the cost nor effective in quelling Islamic radicalism & militancy.

IMO if it was necessary to intervene in Afghanistan to go after al Qaeda we should have gone in big to get the job done then left, or if we stayed we had to commit enough resources along with the international community to have produced a stable nation-state by now.

President Obama was handed a horrible mess with no easy choices. What would happen if we simply up and left now? What are the chances the Taliban would regain control of the country and triumphantly proclaim they defeated the Great Satan? What would that do for the fortunes of the Republican party and their mantra that Democrats are weak on national defense?

Yes, I know -- domestic political considerations should not be a prime factor in decisions about war and peace, life and death. We must consider the lives of Americans (and Brits) in uniform as well as the horrible toll on the Afghan people. But how much of a toll would there be in a civil war as the Taliban fights to regain control -- and what about the aftermath? Would the people be even more repressed, and would the country become an even greater base for international terrorism?

There are no easy answers, at least not for me. If we still have a chance to produce a stable nation-state in Afghanistan, the cost of doing so may be better than the alternative.

And is illegal.

That is it.

If you think there is the slightest chance of "producing" a stable nation-state in Afgahanistan you should read this book. The place is decades from being a nation-state, much less a stable one. We canceled the olympics when Russian "Invaded" Afghanistan and now we are doing the same. It most probably will end up the same for us as the Soviets. Those folks are no threat to the US, assuming we have someone other than George and Dick in the whitehouse who will pay attention when someone tells them of impending attacks.

... then we should get out. Continuing indefinitely the game of whack-a-Taliban-mole will drain us without winning the "war on terra." But just remember, pulling out has consequences too.