Military Seeks Much Bigger Boost for Afghan Forces

Why are we still nation building when it's clear that it's just wasted money? This is frustrating, and will obviously lead to nothing being accomplished at all. Every expert out there that doesn't stand to make money off the war agrees that Afghanistan is a lost cause. CHANGE WE CANT BELIEVE IN. If you wanted out of the Middle East, you should have voted for Ron Paul. Reply

question: how can we justify the war on drugs and permit 90% of poppies used for heroin to grow in Afghanistan? Reply

I understand where McChrystal is coming from: it is obvious to even a casual observer that the degree of lawlessness present in Afghanistan can not be addressed with the number of troops the US and NATO have committed combined with even the rosiest projections of larger Afghan security forces. What McChyrstal -- and everyone else in Washington, as far as I can tell -- doesn't get is that, historically, lawlessness has been an equilibrium state in Afghanistan. For the most part, it has affected only Afghans. Thanks to a peculiar historical nexus the lawlessness that preceded the Taliban, and the Taliban's lawless regime, provided a space for Al Qaeda to develop and launch attacks against the rest of the world. Our mission in Afghanistan should not be to impose our idea of law and order but rather to ensure that the inherent lawlessness that for centuries has provided a form of stability in the area remains a local matter. We need to stop trying to remake Afghanistan into a liberal Western democracy and focus instead on rooting out Al Qaeda and keeping them out. Then we can go back to ignoring Afghanistan, a foreign policy that had benefited both our countries for a couple of centuries. Reply

"...rooting out Al Quaida and keeping them out...." So how exactly is this accomplished? Permanent military bases? Where? A border fence with Pakistan? Please don't leave us hanging. Reply