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May 23, 2012
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
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Jewish World Review
May 20, 2009
/ 26 Iyar 5769
Bloody mission goes awry
By
Glenn Garvin
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
It may seem a little paradoxical for a journalist to say, but I reallllly hope Robert Gates was lying to us earlier this month when he explained what he's learned about Afghanistan over the last 30 years. "If there's one lesson I draw from the past, it is the importance of our staying engaged," the defense secretary told reporters while visiting an American military base in the country's north. "And if there's a lesson for Americans and the international community, it's that we don't dare turn our backs on Afghanistan. This will work if we stay engaged."
I hope that was just another case of the marvelous creativity in language arts that has enabled Gates to work on the national-security teams of both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama without ever encountering philosophical contradiction. Because, in the eighth year of U.S. military occupation, the lesson any sensible person would draw is that it's time to think about getting out.
Somehow the original U.S. mission in Afghanistan — eliminating a state sponsor for al-Qaeda — has morphed into an attempt at nation-building. And though the conventional Washington wisdom is that the Bush administration took its eye off the Afghan ball while going to war in Iraq, the reality is that the world has lavished an incredible amount of resources on the rickety Kabul regime.
Forty-two countries are sending aid to Afghanistan. So are hundreds of NGOs and development banks. More than $15 billion has flowed into the country since the Taliban was toppled, which may sound like a pittance compared to the money the Obama administration is hurling around in its daily industry bailouts, but nonetheless represents more than a year of Afghanistan's GDP. Imagine the impact of spending the equivalent sum — upward of $16 trillion — in the United States. Meanwhile, a multinational force of 75,000 troops patrols the country, with another 21,000 American soldiers on the way.
What have we gotten for that? A country that's a festering sore of corruption inside the capital, and a shooting gallery outside it. Afghanistan's No. 1 industry is stealing foreign aid; No. 2, exporting opium to supply the world heroin trade.
The problem is that we're trying to create a stable democracy in something that isn't even really a country, just a collection of arbitrary borders drawn for the convenience of British colonialists, populated by a random collection of tribal warlords whose bloodlust is exceeded only by their proclivity for betrayal.
Afghanistan's culture of ethnic violence and political dysfunction makes Iraq look positively utopian by comparison.
In his book "The Great Gamble," NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer recounts how KGB officers sent to advise the pro-Soviet Afghan regime of the late 1970s were horrified when the troops they trained used their skills not to assassinate counterrevolutionary rebels but one another. The KGB men weren't the first foreigners confounded by the sanguinary impulses of Afghan tribes. "Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices," wrote Winston Churchill while working as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan, "has produced a code of honor so strange and inconsistent that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind."
Churchill was covering one of several 19th-century British attempts to pacify Afghanistan and create "one grand community under one law and one rule." Instead, they all ended in the slaughter of the British troops and the elephants they rode in on. The sole unifying principle in the whole history of Afghanistan is a fierce desire to kill armed foreigners, a discovery eventually made by everyone from Alexander the Great to Leonid Brezhnev.
Must we learn the same lesson the same bloody way? Our intent in Afghanistan was to destroy the Taliban government and deny al Qaeda a state platform for terrorism, and we achieved those goals mostly by using local warlords as our proxies. If there's a Taliban resurgence, we can do so again.
By staying, we merely paint a target on our backs, one that gets broader every day. The 1,500-mile supply line to U.S. troops in Afghanistan runs through Pakistan. What will we do if the government there falls? Strike a deal with Russia and Vladimir Putin? Or Iran? What will that cost? CIA doctors recently told a bemused team of agency officers that the dust swirling through their facilities at Bagram Air Base is 90-percent composed of dried feces. Soon enough, the same will be said of our military mission in Afghanistan.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Glenn Garvin is a columnist for the Miami Herald
Previously:
05/07/09: The problem is they aren't just goofin'
04/30/09: Why can't students say guns in school?
04/08/09: When non-U.S. citizens vote
03/2e/09: Of course the AIG bonus boys the best and the brightest deserve their loot
03/12/09: No choice in Free Choice Act
© 2009, The Miami Herald Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
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