Where are we in Afghanistan?

I have never been a fan of our going to war in Afghanistan -- or Iraq either for that matter. As I've said before on here, my initial thought right after 9/11 was: why don't, instead of bombs, we fly over and drop humanitarian aid -- at far less cost in money and lives. The idea was to win over the hearts and minds of the people. Instead, we have mainly made more enemies and driven the bad guys into Pakistan, or at least the almost unreachable border area.

A Huffington Post blog today by Daniel Froomkin is worth reading. Here's how it begins:

As Gen. David Petraeus kicks off an extended media blitz intended to make Americans feel better about the war in Afghanistan -- or at least give him some more time to fight it -- he faces a foe more implacable than al Qaeda, or even the Taliban: Reality.

That reality, increasingly obvious to national security experts and the general public alike, is that no amount of good intentions or firepower is going to advance our fundamental interests in Afghanistan -- and that as much as Petraeus might be able to achieve in the next six months, or a year, little to none of it is sustainable and most of it is, even worse, counterproductive.

U.S. taxpayers are spending vast amounts of money on the war -- over $200 million a day for military operations alone. Our troops work tirelessly, fight and die to protect and build up the people and institutions of Afghanistan.

But how that turns into success remains wildly unclear. And even more importantly, the relationship between what we're doing on a day to day basis and our ostensible goal -- keeping America safe from al Qaeda -- seems increasingly tenuous.

He goes on to examine the options open to Obama, as Petraeus tries to make the case to Congress and the American people, and as Obama convenes a high level conference on Afghanistan later this fall. One compelling point he made on the other side is that, suppose we pull out, or reduce our operations to training and reconstruction efforts, and suppose we have another 9/11 type attack in this country that originated in the al Qaeda cells in Afghanistan -- Obama would be blamed for not keeping out country safe, whether that had any bearing on it or not. That kind of blame does not travel on fact and reason.

And then there is the idea of our "abandoning" the Afghan people and the politically suicidal move of "giving up" and being "unwilling to fight," all of which the noisey right will be sure to exploit.

There really aren't any good options, I'm afraid. But Obama did a good thing in putting Petraeus in charge. I think the right would have a hard time saying Obama didn't know what he was doing, as long as Petraeus is involved and supports the decisions.

What to do doesn't yet have the clarity that we came to about Viet Nam, but we're getting there.

Ralph