There has been a running commentary in the Wash Post regarding Afghanistan.  It started two days ago with a George Will op-ed called “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan” https://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/no_will_no_way.html. Will basically accepted that the war is being lost and indeed might be unwinnable in any conventional sense because it is really all about nation building, which will almost certainly fail. He suggested that the task of preventing al-Qaeda’s return to the country could be managed using “offshore” resources like cruise missiles, drones, and special forces.  The offshore bit is more than a little silly, but Will seems to be spot on in assessing the war as a waste of resources and in pursuit of objectives that just cannot be realized.

Not willing to surrender to defeatism, the Post followed up with a Bill Kristol commentary yesterday https://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/no_will_no_way.html and a lead editorial today https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090203083.html.  Both Kristol and Fred Hiatt (presumably the author of the editorial) supported an increased effort in Afghanistan but I wondered, as I was reading, why we should be in Afghanistan at all?  The Post provided only a hint, i.e. “preventing al-Qaeda from regaining a foothold in the country,” an objective also mentioned by Kristol.  Kristol also said that staying in Afghanistan is important because of Pakistan, without providing any evidence that the US troop presence is either stabilizing or otherwise helpful to the corrupt kleptocrats currently ruling in Islamabad.  As Jeff Huber has pointed out, modern technology means that al-Qaeda can operate out of anywhere. including their current digs in Waziristan, so the objective of stopping a return to Afghanistan to neutralize the group would appear to be an exercise in futility. 

All of which means a commitment of tens of thousands of American soldiers and hundreds of billions of dollars more in support of an agenda that is a bit hard to frame in terms of the US national interest.  Perhaps Kristol came up with the actual reason why he and the Wash Post want to continue the war when he posited at the end of his blurb that leaving would be “defeat.” Interestingly, the numerous comments from Post readers on the Will piece and on Kristol appeared to run about ten-to-one in favor of getting out now.  There were a number of particularly nasty comments about Kristol the arm-chair warrior who has never seen a war he didn’t like.