When Will Afghanistan War End?

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal-Pioneer

The vast majority of Americans are sick and tired of the war in Afghanistan.

A recent New York Times/CBS News survey found that 69 percent of those polled indicated that the United States should end the 11 year old war sooner than the projected 2014 withdrawal of American forces.

This drop in support follows a number of incidents, including the inadvertent burning of Korans by American troops and the killing of 17 Afghan civilians in a village earlier this month by Robert Bales, an American staff sergeant.

The poll also follows a number of killings of American troops by their Afghan partners -- a trend that General John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told the New York Times was likely to continue.

The same day Allen made his comments, three NATO soldiers were shot to death in two separate confrontations involving Afghan security forces.

As well, Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, has become increasingly erratic and is also suspected of trying to broker a power-sharing deal with the Taliban, behind NATO’s back. He even demanded that NATO troops leave the villages and confine themselves to major bases.

Those of us old enough to remember the Vietnam War sense a déjà vu quality to all this. Indeed, it brings to mind the satirical song, “Talking Vietnam Blues,” penned by the late anti-war activist Phil Ochs in 1964:

    Well they put me in a barracks house
    Just across the way from Laos.
    They said you’re pretty safe when the troops deploy
    But don’t turn your back on your house boy
    When they ring the gong, watch out for the Viet Cong.

The Afghanistan war has not seen the same groundswell of anti-war activism that was a hallmark of the 1960s, for two reasons:

Americans considered ridding the country of the Taliban, whose leaders had offered Al-Qaeda a base of operations, justified, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the world Trade Center and Pentagon.

And the U.S. military is today a volunteer force, so most Americans do not feel any personal    loss from the war; their sons and daughters have not been drafted to fight in a far-off land, as was the case with Vietnam.

Even so, Americans sense that by this point, there’s nothing more to be done in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda is long gone and Osama bin Laden is dead. And the attempts at democratization and nation-building have been abandoned as utopian dreams.

The war in Vietnam went on far too long, after it was clear that there would be no clear-cut victory over the Communists. President Obama should heed this lesson in regards to Afghanistan. Realpolitik dictates that it’s time to leave.