Do We Know What We're Doing in Afghanistan?

We've spent over eight years in Afghanistan with no prospect of leaving, no clear mission and no consistent strategy. Yet, we are poised to send more soldiers and pour billions more dollars into a place that has been called the "graveyard of empires."

One has to wonder if we know what we're doing.

Our leaders remain in a quandary over the war. For example, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, want to triple the size of the police and military in Afghanistan. General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of Afghanistan, advocates a counter-insurgency approach and up to 40,000 troops to assist the 68,000 already there. Vice President Joe Biden suggests a counter-terrorism approach that focuses on combating al Qaeda through the use of unmanned drones and special forces instead of additional troops.

"This is the definition of insanity," said Phyllis Bennis, a foreign policy expert who specializes in Middle East and United Nations issues and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. Recently, she spoke during Peace Week at Western Michigan University where she provided a punchy critique on the war that has already cost $225 billion, 904 Americans' lives and God knows how many Afghani lives.

Bennis questioned the original purposes and motivations of the war, which were meant to respond to 9/11. However, the hijackers were Saudis and Egyptians who attended flight schools in the United States and they lived in Hamburg, Germany. So why did we invade Afghanistan?

And as horrific as September 11 was, it was not an act of war that warranted the invasion of that country, said Bennis. President Bush called it a "war of justice" when it was really a "war of vengeance."

"Wars of justice are never legal, never just and they don't work," she said.

Bennis called for a strategy that looks at the region as a whole and supports "real diplomacy." That strategy would include those countries that border Afghanistan including China and Iran who have a stake in what goes on there for their own security needs. However, it's unlikely that the United States would consult or work with those countries.

She is also concerned about the drones that are launched to kill the bad guys but also kill the good guys.

"It's harder to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people when you send more troops, destroy their schools, and kill the good guys," said Bennis. "There is no one at the administration's table saying this."

Such missteps have occurred from the very start of this war, she said. From November 2001 until January 2002, American Special Forces only numbered about 2,000. The big action was in the air, mostly over Kabul where cluster bombs were used.

Cluster bombs are softball-size and they explode into several hundred "bomblets" that spread 100 yards before they hit the ground, explained Bennis. However, 10 percent of the cluster bombs dropped don't explode. Once they are on the ground, they become land mines that endanger civilian populations. (Many countries have banned cluster bombs but the United States still uses them.)

At the beginning of the invasion, President Bush ordered food drops over Afghanistan in order to make the point that the United States was fighting the terrorists and the Taliban, not innocent civilians. Officials calculated that 7.5 million of Afghanistan's 27 million population was starving. However noble that gesture, the food was wrapped in the same yellow plastic as the cluster bombs, and the people didn't know if they had come upon a bomb or a food package.

As a result of all these mishaps and the fact that Afghanistan has been largely seen as "the forgotten war," many Americans wonder why we are still there.

"It's not about oil pipelines, natural resources or women's rights," said Bennis. "George Bush found a great moment to expand the American empire and Afghanistan was the logical place to start. Obama, now, has to make a name for himself. But he had to find a war of his own and Afghanistan was available. He regards it as a good war."

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