Solving Afghanistan requires knowing what you want to do in the country in the first place

There's an interesting, somewhat irrelevant article on CNN from a former Soviet general who occupied Afghanistan during the era of the Soviet Union. The article makes the mistake of allowing the general to make the argument that the United States is doing the same thing in Afghanistan that the Soviet Union was: Installing a government that is friendly to the occupying country.

And that's the problem right there. The reason the United States is in Afghanistan was NEVER about establishing democracy. Oh sure, we're slowly coming to try to do that, but that's not why we went there. We forget why we went there when we invaded. We didn't go there to conduct a regime change. We went there to kick some ass. Kick some Taliban ass and to kick it all across Afghanistan until we couldn't find anymore Taliban ass to kick anymore. Then we should have done what any angry mob does: Go home.

Our reason for being in Afghanistan was vengeance. There's really no denying that. We went there because we were certain the Taliban were hiding Al Qaeda. So we invaded and slaughtered the Taliban stronghold. Now, well, we're sitting around and letting them come back to power.

What we should have done was wipe them out and then leave. Maybe stop for ice cream, but then just leave.

We've never been all that good at nation building. No one really is. As the Soviet general argues, the Afghans are going to do what the Afghans want to do. So let them. And if they piss us off again, we send in the Air Force, kick some ass, buy some more ice cream and then leave again.

That's really what we should be doing in Afghanistan. Sitting around and hoping they'll get together and make nice is never going to work. Sorry. It just doesn't work that way in the real world.

Stumble It!