Editorial - Troops should also leave Afghanistan

You come off as ignorant and one-sided as does the DA Staff, who prepared the poorly-written drivel about which you complain. Your reasoning seems to be that their opposition to American involvement in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is directly correlated to, and therefore caused by, their left/liberal slant. This completely ignores the growing anti-war sentiment among centrists and conservatives.

ALL OF YA:

The mission in Afghanistan, contrary to what the above opinion implies, was never to kill Osama bin Laden. Some consider that a bonus, and others (like me) consider it a tragic lapse of justice. Regardless, his capture and/or killing (execution, murder, whatever you care to call it) was a marginal consideration. Rather, the mission was to end Taliban support of Al Qaeda and related terrorist activity worldwide.

This isn't so simple as one sentence might imply, however. For instance, that includes the implied task of securing the nation of Afghanistan in the interim, while it establishes a respectable government (hasn't happened yet), and control of its own borders and internal security (DEFINITELY hasn't happened yet). Why does it imply these tasks? Because the Taliban had been in charge of the country for many years, between the end of the Soviet campaign there and the beginning of the NATO one. In fact, not so long ago, the Taliban made international news for becoming a threat to parts of Iran along their shared border.

Unfortunately, nation-building entails national security service in the interim. And it is an absolute necessity when undertaking a military campaign of the magnitude of Operation Enduring Freedom. This is dirty, expensive business. It takes a long-term commitment.

It might help to think of OEF as cancer treatment. What we've heard from many war opponents is that the surgery alone was plenty, and it's up to the patient to recover. What yet others have suggested is that non-invasive, holistic treatment alone should do the trick--we simply needed to give it more time. And while there is a relatively small 5-year survival rate for this particular cancer, the few successful cases have been realized from an approach that involves immediate surgery followed by long-term chemotherapy. It costs a lot of money, and takes a lot of effort by a great many medical professionals. Most importantly, the patient himself must be absolutely committed to getting better.

Now, apply that example to the case of OEF. Unfortunately, the initial operation to remove the tumor wasn't able to remove the whole thing--small pieces of it remained, and have since continued growing. Initially, the dosage applied in chemotherapy was too small to be effective, and now that it's been raised to an appropriate level, it's still difficult to subdue the small tumor fragments that remain. Of course, it SHOULD work given enough time and the willingness of both the patient and his doctors.

Of course, should the doctors throw-in the towel, the tumors will eventually overtake the patient again. Another surgery is out of the question. We can keep nursing the patient along, albeit far more slowly and at far greater cost than what we've ever been comfortable with, or we can put him in fate's hands and he will SURELY succumb.

If you advocate the immediate and complete withdrawal of American military personnel from Afghanistan, then be ready to have the blood of the many Afghan men and women (among them, more than a few are my friends) who will surely perish in the ensuing madness on YOUR hands. If you advocate sticking it out longer than is necessary for the nation to become stable and respectable, then prepare to have my brothers and sisters in-arms' blood on YOUR hands.

There is a balance to be had here. That's something that, more and more, it seems to me, our political "leaders" (I use that term VERY loosely in describing anyone working in the US political system today) and their followers are unwilling to accept. It's all about Veruca Salt these days ("Don't care how, I want it NOW!") in political discussions. And the military men and women of our nation are the ones to suffer the effects of our dysfunction.

Grow up...