Max Boot notes that Vice President Biden is confused about why we are in Afghanistan:
It is the responsibility of the Afghans to take care of their own security. We have trained over 315,000, mostly without incident. There have been more than two dozen cases of green-on-blue where Americans have been killed. If we do not — if the measures the military has taken do not take hold, we will not go on joint patrols. We will not train in the field. We’ll only train in the — in the Army bases that exist there.
But we are leaving. We are leaving in 2014. Period. And in the process, we’re going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion. We’ve been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now, all we’re doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security.
It’s their responsibility, not America’s.
But we didn't invade Afghanistan to allow the Afghans to build a peaceful country. We invaded to keep Afghanistan from being a jihadi safe haven to plan and execute attacks like 9/11 on our home soil. A stable Afghanistan governing structure (at the national and provincial level) that can take over the fight is the means and not the objective.
If Afghans can't take over the fight when we leave, by definition we are leaving too soon.
Not that I'm gloomy--just worried. We plan on keeping troops in Afghanistan to help after 2014. We could still win even with our withdrawal:
NATO instructors have resumed training Afghan police, after a month long suspension because of a spike in attacks on NATO troops by men in Afghan police or army uniforms. Many of the attackers were members of the security forces. The Taliban and other terrorists were behind this new tactic. The U.S. and NATO implemented measures to reduce the incidence of such attacks. Despite the Taliban putting a lot of resources into this tactic (recruiting attackers and paying off the families of the attackers who “heroically” died), casualties among foreign troops continue to decline this year, while Taliban losses continue to increase. The Taliban are hoping the departure of foreign troops will turn things around for them. That remains to be seen, as most Afghans hate the Taliban and Islamic radicals in general.
It helps that the Taliban are hated.
I remain hopeful because even as the Iraq surge was working, critics of the war argued that the Iraqi security forces were not ready to take over. But they were ready.
But even though our plan was for Americans to remain in Iraq to help after 2011, the Obama administration was content to let negotiations fail to establish that presence. And now Iraq can see al Qaeda regaining strength.
So I can be forgiven for wondering whether we'll really keep troops in Afghanistan after 2014 when in that year there will be congressional elections here and maybe the anti-war side will demand clear withdrawal. I'm worried we're too distracted to win this war when we are fully capable of winning.
