Warring for Peace
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Soft Money
01/19/2011
ccording to the National Priorities Project, a 501(c) think tank based in Massachusetts, the United States (at this exact moment) spent exactly $370,332,000,000 dollars in the Afghanistan War. In less than one minute, more money will have been spent than an average American household earns annually. These numbers do not take into account appropriations for civilian programs, or other forms of lateral aid.
The cost in lives has been tremendous. 2,301 Coalition troops have died as a result of action in the Afghanistan War, more than half of those American. An untold number of Afghans have perished, but even the most conservative estimates are in the tens of thousands.
After nearly a decade of war, in a country where conflicts stretch through generations, there is no clearly defined end state. There is no enemy flag to tear down. There is no capital to sack, no army to defeat. In America's longest war, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
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The lives, the money, and the years lost while fighting two wars are the most important and tragic costs to the United States. There are other forfeits made in any war, and while these losses are more subtly felt, they are still harmful. What was overlooked? While resources are spent here, where are they being denied? What opportunities have been missed? What will be the consequences of these opportunity costs down the road?
Our country may never know the full negative impact of the Afghanistan War, but it will undoubtedly be long-lasting. If Iraq is any example of what is to follow our eventual pullback in Afghanistan, then we can expect the power vacuum to be filled by the next biggest fish in the pond. In the case of Afghanistan, this fish is called the Afghan Taliban - an anti-Tajik, anti-Pashtun Islamic fundamentalist group with close ties to Pakistan.
Pakistan - as schizophrenic as Hamid Karzai - provides safe havens for Afghan Taliban leadership in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. In this same region, the remnant of bin Laden's al Qaeda is suspected to reside. Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, trains the Afghan Taliban and its associate groups on how to best kill American troops. Meanwhile, the ISI also delivers the whereabouts of these safe havens to the United States, and offers airbases from which to launch drone strikes against the Afghan Taliban. Afterward, the Pakistani government publicly condemns the strikes and incites public outrage, which more often than not leads to several attacks on supply convoys traveling through Pakistan en route to Afghanistan.
The war continues in these vicious cycles, and NATO's involvement in Afghanistan only influences that particular country in what is truly a regional war. Pakistan creates violence in Afghanistan through the use of proxy groups like the Afghan Taliban in order to deter what they consider encirclement by pro-Indian forces. Since going to war against a nuclear state is unfeasible, Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban will not be broken militarily. Thus, the Afghan Taliban will not be broken militarily.
In what was originally a retaliatory mission to kill or capture those involved in 9/11, the US mission in Afghanistan has now grown into nation building while mitigating a civil war amidst a proxy war between two nuclear-armed states, Pakistan and India. There are no realistic prospects for success.
Why, in this 9th year of war, has there been no quartet negotiations involving the US, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India? Why has there been no diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to isolate the recalcitrant Quetta Shura? Why does the Afghan government, a corrupt and inept regime led by an ineffectual drug addict, continue to receive a blank check?
Where is President Obama's line in the sand on Afghanistan?
There is an old saying about warring for peace.
In the time it took to write this post, the cost of the Afghanistan War has risen by 20 million dollars.
A bomb blast has killed 20 Afghan civilians, including 13 children.
