THE "GOOD" WAR?

I slapped a “War is not the Answer” bumper sticker on my car years ago and yet until recently I accepted the argument that Afghanistan was one of those “good wars.”

 

Canvassing door-to-door for John Kerry during the 2006 campaign, I often made the pitch to undecided voters that while George Bush could be excused for Afghanistan, he forfeited his right to be re-elected by launching that “bad war” in Iraq.  War is not the answer, I told myself, except when somebody attacks you.

 

This month marks the 8^th anniversary of the Afghan war, and I’m still conflicted just as are most Americans who have up until now justified our continuing, half-hearted occupation of that ancient battlefield. 

 

On the one hand, Afghanistan was the launching pad for the 9-11 attacks on the United States, and it continues to harbor terrorists who not only would destroy liberal democracy in their own country but could destabilize neighboring Pakistan as well.  And didn’t progressives cast their lot last November with candidate Barack Obama even as he vowed not only to continue this war but escalate it as necessary?

 

The Quaker policy group, Friends Committee for National Legislation (FCNL), makes a strong argument that it’s well-past time to bring the troops home and change the focus to training Afghan soldiers and police and redevelopment of the Afghan economy.  Nearly 800 U.S. troops have died in that wretched country since Oct. 7, 2001 and what have we gained, given the revival of the Taliban and the corruption exposed during the recent Afghan elections?  

 

(Read FCNL’s analysis at http://www.fcnl.org/now/now_item.php?item_id=636 )

 

And yet – and yet – I know it’s unlikely that the U.S., bogged down by domestic problems, would vigoously support Afghan redevelopment once our boys and girls in uniform are back home.  We are no longer the nation which committed to rebuilding Europe after World War II.  Rather, we’ve become addicted to short term gain and long-term avoidance, a foreign policy which Bush demonstrated when he left Afghanistan in the lurch back in 2003 to carry out his misguided invasion of Iraq.

 

I hope Obama is as smart as I thought he was when I helped put him in the White House last November, and that he’ll figure a way out of this dreadful impasse.

 

All I know is that the bumper sticker is right – there is no such thing as a “good war” – and I no longer have the patience or optimism to think this war is any exception.

 

-- David Lore