Deep in the shadows of the Regime's ill-conceived and illegally executed "Global War on Terror" which caused the United States to topple a dictator, torture suspects and occupy a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaida, the conflict in Afghanistan was called the "good war". Perhaps the label was attached because the rationale for fighting there was much clearer and more relevant to destroying the terrorists responsible for destroying the Twin Towers. Eight years later, the exit signs are up in Iraq and our troops are packing. But the war in Afghanistan has only gotten more complicated and deadly. The recent botched election is one symptom of what is wrong there. Our commander on the ground, General McChrystal, is asking for more troops to prevent the Taliban from exercising effective control over the entire country. Bombs are going off in Kabul where a weak central government is so hopelessly incompetent that its citizens turn to a ruthless gang of Islamic fundamentalists for succor. At the crossroads of foreign empire, Afghanistan remains a backward realm[1]. Even the mighty Ghengis Khan did not subdue its mountain tribes despite his merciless slaughter of the inhabitants. Centuries later, the British and then the Soviets met defeat among the high mountain passes of the Hindu Kush. American execeptionalism is no exception in Afghanistan.The spectacle of Hamid Karzai's theft of the national election resonates with those Americans who remember President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam--the head of a ineptly corrupt government propped up by the strength of western arms, not national acclaim. The resurgence of the Taliban, once soundly defeated on the battlefield by conventional weapons but now in control of half of the country, reminds us of the Tet Offensive. We were supposedly winning that war too--the body counts told us so. Then in January, 1968 the NVA came out of the jungles and attacked every major city in the south with force. The Unites States Army responded effectively and drove the North back, but the offensive changed America's collective mind about continuing to fight a resilient enemy so far from home for reasons becoming increasingly obscure.
A similar tipping point has been reached in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks are up 60% from October of 2008. On election day in Kunduz, considered one of the safest cities in Afghanistan, the Taliban fired fifty-seven rockets to disrupt the voting process. The war is costing Americans $4 billion a month[2]. Eight years after 9/11 the need for 
blood revenge is growing less urgent. Certainly Americans want to see Osama Bin Laden brought to book for his slaughter of innocents. Bin Laden recently made the point by another of his taped broadcasts that the war in Afghanistan has failed our repeatedly stated objectives: to completely destroy his allies, the Taliban, and bring him to account. The allegations of widespread vote rigging by our Afghan ally has only added to the doubts about the eventual outcome of so much sacrifice. What President Obama first called an operation to disrupt and deny the terrorists sanctuary has morphed into an open ended effort at nation building in a region that has never known an effective, long lasting national government since the Kushan Empire of the first-third centuries CE. Killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden is a specific, perhaps attainable goal. Forming a modern democratic nation from groups of illiterate, ethnically divided tribesman living in an arid mountainous terrain, and economically dependent on opium trafficking, is a goal too amorphous to achieve in a time span Americans are willing to support with the expenditure of more lives. The United States has many pressing problems at home and in the world. Building a modern nation of Afghanistan is a straw that could eventually break the camel's back.
blood revenge is growing less urgent. Certainly Americans want to see Osama Bin Laden brought to book for his slaughter of innocents. Bin Laden recently made the point by another of his taped broadcasts that the war in Afghanistan has failed our repeatedly stated objectives: to completely destroy his allies, the Taliban, and bring him to account. The allegations of widespread vote rigging by our Afghan ally has only added to the doubts about the eventual outcome of so much sacrifice. What President Obama first called an operation to disrupt and deny the terrorists sanctuary has morphed into an open ended effort at nation building in a region that has never known an effective, long lasting national government since the Kushan Empire of the first-third centuries CE. Killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden is a specific, perhaps attainable goal. Forming a modern democratic nation from groups of illiterate, ethnically divided tribesman living in an arid mountainous terrain, and economically dependent on opium trafficking, is a goal too amorphous to achieve in a time span Americans are willing to support with the expenditure of more lives. The United States has many pressing problems at home and in the world. Building a modern nation of Afghanistan is a straw that could eventually break the camel's back.[1]President Karzai recently endorsed a law that allows a Shia husband to deny food to his wife if she refuses his sexual demands. A law was passed that allows a rapist to avoid prosecution if the perpetrator pays "blood money". In the World Bank's scale of legal efficiency Afghanistan ranks last below Iraq and Pakistan. Azari, Counterpunch 9/25/09
[2]Rashid, New York Review
[left: the extent of Ghengis Khan's empire at his death in 1227]
[right: the sole survivor from the British evacuation of Kabul arrives at Jalalabad, 1842]