Afghanistan and Veteran's Day

On this Veteran's Day, while Obama mulls his options for Afghanistan, I figure it's about time that I provide some of my thoughts on the subject. Today, we are supposed to honor our military veterans and thank them for their service. I thank them, but I often feel very disheartened that we do not respect their commitment fully in our military adventures.

Several weeks ago on September 10, Matthew Hoh, an Iraq War veteran and U.S. representative in Afghanistan, submitted his resignation. In his resignation letter, available here courtesy of the Washington Post, Hoh describes in great detail his reasons. Most notably, Hoh feels that our mission and strategy in Afghanistan is not worth the sacrifice of our military personnel:

I fail to see the value of worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war.

He concludes his letter stating:

The dead return only in bodily form to be received by families who must be reassured their dead have sacrificed for a purpose of futures lost, love vanished, and promised dreams unkept. I have lost confidence such assurances can anymore be made.

This is a difficult pill to swallow, but Hoh makes his case quite well. I strongly encourage you to read the entire letter (it's only four pages long). I truly do not believe that our mission in Afghanistan, which has recently led to the deadliest months in our campaign, is making us any safer. It is time we cut our losses and come home. This is politically difficult - both domestically and on a geopolitical scale. But, it is time.

Afghanistan has had a sordid recent history. Its civil war and the destabilization caused by international interference have allowed factions like the Taliban to exercise significant power. Its geography, history, and culture have created a system of government which, at the moment, is highly decentralized. In an interview with NPR, Hoh described the system as "valleyism" where allegiance is localized - family, then village, then valley. There is an opposition both to invaders and the central government. Listen to any political analyst or government official in the U.S. and you will quickly hear the rhetoric that our problem in Afghanistan is the due in significant part to the lack of a strong central government.

The current Afghan government, while flawed, has characteristics which resemble both early America and my description of ideal governance laid out in this article. Is a strong central government in Afghanistan a necessity for U.S. safety? Do we need to send our military, our friends and relatives, into harm's way to engage in nation building? Should we dictate how Afghanistan is governed? No, no and no.