Inkwell Institute

International Studies Desk

That is the question that I have asked from the second year onward….and I am NOT alone….many people are starting to ask that very same question and so far, like me, have not had a good answer to the question……

We have heard that we are in Afghanistan to rid the world of al Qaeda but yet there are fewer than a 100 in the country….or we are there to keep the Taliban from regaining power and let the cycle begin again as it did in 1989 when the Russians vacated the country, but which Taliban?  There are many versions of the movement, some terror related and others just a local movement.  Or we are there to help stabilize a volatile part of the world….would that be a political solution?  In other words we are nation building?

The Congress has just voted on a funding project for Afghanistan…

The last two weeks have thrown an especially harsh light on the war effort, with new reports of corruption in President Hamid Karzai’s government, and a change in the commander of U.S. forces and multinational forces in Afghanistan.

The House-approved bill includes nearly $4 billion in economic aid to Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan.

Still it seemed a wonder the new money for the unpopular war got through the House at all, after long arguments among Democratic lawmakers over whether and how to do it. They set up a complicated series of votes in which the non-military spending passed 239-182, while the part containing the war funding passed 215-210.

Just what is the end game for declaring a victory in Afghanistan and bringing the troops home?  Just what is the “real” reasons that we and our allies are still forcing our troops into such hardships?

If it is the AQ thing, then there are more within the borders of Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan….should not our focus be on Pakistan then?  That will NOT happen!

Okay then, is it the Taleban?  There are about as many Taleban organizations as hair on the back of your hand….some are hard core terrorists, some are just pissed that we are an occupying force and then there are those that are just fundamentalist religious types….which one of these are we fighting?  Is it the word Taleban that we are fighting?  Why not eliminate the hard core and then work with the others?

And then there is the “political” side of the reason for war……let us be honest…the popularly elected (a point of contention) president of Afghanistan, Karzai, is little more than the mayor of the capital, Kabul.

So what is the end game in Afghanistan?  Politicians cannot answer that simple question, then who has the answer?