Afghanistan: Break the Vicious Cycle; Bring the Troops Home

Winning the war in Afghanistan is like stamping out moonshine in the old South. The harder you tried, the more difficult it got. What finally made a difference was not the enforcement, but the economy. With expanded paychecks, people took great pride in store bought packages with tax seals intact. The problem in Afghanistan is that war is a source of revenue--and we are paying both sides, and suffering the loss of American lives. That becomes the justification for a vicious cycle of policy whose successes are temporary gained by losses which are permanent.

The incredible cost in lives and resources of a war being fought on China's doorstep only shows how out of step many Republicans are when they warn of the China threat. The US spends more on the Afghan war than China does for its entire military budget. China has no battle group in its Navy. China has issued no menacing statements about the US presence in Asia. Yet some would turn the paper tiger into a straw man.

Perhaps the purpose of focusing on China is to divert attention from the long war which shows the inadeptness of approaching policy objectives by the application of military force. Why not take half the resources we are expending and save all of the lives that would be lost by bringing the troops home and issuing development grants to the regions controlled by war lords. If money shifted taste away from homemade stills, it certainly should tamp down terrorist support by war lords drunk with new wealth.