As many readers know I have written several articles regarding Afghanistan on OEN. They have to do with our country recognizing that we have lost still another war that we caused and was a result of sheer ignorance and arrogance.

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As many readers know I have written several articles regarding Afghanistan on OEN. They have to do with our country recognizing that we have lost still another war that we caused and was a result of sheer ignorance and arrogance.

Imagine my surprise when I read an article by Anna Mulrine,  Staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor entitled Afghanistan: Why don't we leave now? It can be argued that there are a few of us sane writers left, noting that the mainstream media hardly gives a thought to Afghanistan today let alone our insurmountable problems there.

Mulrine wrote, "Why can't we just leave Afghanistan now?" That makes a bit of sense when one considers that is exactly what the Soviet Red Army did after eight years of war ending in defeat. They left with their tail between their legs rather unceremoniously. The same is true of the British Empire who tried for years during the 19^th Century to tame this wild land. Going back a few thousand years Afghanistan resisted successfully other empires including Alexander, the Great. These were lessons in history that our leaders ignored, and, can you imagine the absolute absurdity of our military leaders when we invaded this country the size of Texas with 3500 ground troops in Oct. 2001!

It is not that Afghanistan has some great military machine to defend its country. She cannot afford it. She is one of the poorest countries on Earth, her military ranks at the bottom of the scale, and she is at the bottom as a threat to the national security of any nation in her region let alone the mighty U.S. a half a world away.

What Afghanistan does have are extremely high mountains with extremely steep passes that rival the Himalayas where a few can hold off an enemy regiment. From their hideouts in the mountains raids can be made on their enemies after which they scurry back to their hideaways. Combine this with their fierce independence and a total reliance on their tribe. They cannot tolerate even an Afghan central government, let alone outsiders like the British, Soviets, and Americans.

Still another factor is that Afghan society is one that lives by the gun. The average 12-year old boy in Afghanistan is a sharpshooter with an AK-47. That might be a slight exaggeration but the reader gets my point. The average Afghan has a gun, knows how to use it, and has been using it to kill others. It is a way of life in Afghanistan. Moreover, the average American views the Afghan people as being from a different planet. I cannot stress this more strongly. The Afghan people have a perfect right to live just the way they want to live. They don't have much, but who gave Westerners the right to determine their fate?

The above paragraphs mirrors another society with its high mountains, steep passes, warlike defiance, and an urge for fierce independence, the American Indian in our vast West during 19^th Century. How did the U.S. military solve the Indian problem? We eradicated the Indian. After we took their lands we killed most of them, including women and children, and imprisoned the rest on reservations, many of which still exist today.

Is this how we solve the Afghan problem? Well, that is not done these days, but the two societies parallel one another. The Afghan will never accept a Western-oriented central government in Kabul with its corruption and weakness self-evident. The Afghan has never accepted a central government.   They rely -- you guessed it -- on the tribe. Sound familiar? 3,000 years of history ought to prove something.

The logic of our situation is inescapable. The only way to subdue the Afghan is to eradicate him. Since we cannot possibly do that in the 21^st Century, the only other option is leave now. Eleven years of war and futility ought to prove something.

To paraphrase President Clinton it depends on what the meaning of the word now is. Mulrine is a Pentagon staff writer for CSM. There is little doubt that she is familiar with the logistics of the situation in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that she did not mean dropping everything, meaning our trucks, APC'S, tanks, computers and what all else, and head for the exits. No one is suggesting that. What Mulrine is talking about is a directive for an orderly strategic withdrawal from the region "now," meaning the very near future. No other recourse makes sense. Americans have had it with Afghanistan.

To illustrate, Obama and Romney rarely mention Afghanistan. This forgotten war has even been all but forgotten by our two Presidential candidates.

Following the statement made above, Mulrine added, "It's the unspoken question that top Pentagon officials are endeavoring to answer in their assurances that America must stay its course in the war-torn country." What follows is the usual pious platitudes from a military high command that is facing defeat and their political cronies. The comments are similar to Hitler who proclaimed that a German victory was inevitable as German cities were burning while his armies were retreating on every front.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, stressed recently that the surge's purpose was "to buy us some time on some Taliban initiatives," he said, adding "and to buy us some space to grow the Afghan security forces." Well, that did not work.

But Dempsey says it did with a caveat that suggests Obama's plan did not work. Read between the lines to understand what Dempsey said. "The surge had its intended effect. I think it was an effort that was worth the cost -- and don't forget, it did have its cost."

Despite Dempsey's feel good remarks that fell well short of being encouraging, there is this indisputable fact. With the sharp increase of green-on-blue attacks on US forces, the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission were suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. The good general failed to mention that fact.

The innocuous comments continue. The dunce cap for obsequious remarks is awarded to Anthony Cordesman, an Afghanistan analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who estimates that it will take "at least 13 months to clear the equipment we've got deployed. People forget that there are very real physical limits. We cannot leave the things behind at random -- they're worth too much and are potentially dangerous." True, we cannot leave behind our tanks, APC's, drone aircraft, trucks, computers, and God knows what all else, but we can leave behind airfields and mega bases that we built to the tune of hundreds of billion dollars. His remark implies that he knows that the vast majority of Americans and our leaders want out yesterday. But Cordesman says we have to wait at least 13 months. That is total nonsense and an insult to our military. If our military forces in Afghanistan got the word we are leaving, gather up your sh*t, and let's go, it would take two months, three months tops. Folks on the home front are not the only ones who want us to leave now.

But Cordesman was not through with making an absolute fool of himself. According to Mulrine, "The larger question, he adds, is whether it is strategically desirable to leave Afghanistan now. With a focus on tamping down corruption and with a couple more years work with the Afghan national security forces, "I think what you can accomplish is a reasonable chance that the Afghan government and economy can hold together with some chance of a coherent structure in Kabul, and a reasonable chance that the Afghan Army can be strong enough that, with some cooperation, it can hold insurgent forces at bay,' Cordesman says." He is dreaming. He is still not through.

"Can we guarantee a future? No," he adds. "Yes, it has been an incredibly costly and frustrating decade. And yes, we do not seem to have clear plans for the future."

However, he adds, "We can create a situation where we can show the world that we were not defeated, and at the same time avoid a decision that would deprive Afghanistan of any chance of stability." In all cases emphasis is mine. Cordesman fails to note that the lack of "stability," which is a euphemism for the Afghan's 3,000-year history of distaining a central government, preferring the tribe to provide security along with local and social needs, is a matter of their choice, not ours. They don't want what Americans want for them. Want proof. Over eleven years of fruitless war, and our leaders are too dumb to have learned that simple fact. The "show the world" comment is incomprehensible at best and illustrates that Afghans do not live in a different world. Cordesman does.

I do not necessarily wish to pick on Cordesman. He was simply a convenient target thanks to Ms. Mulrine. He is representative of the ludicrous remarks we hear from the President to the Pentagon publicity strategists to the generals. He was merely a servant to his leaders. They all fail to realize that Americans have learned of the follies of bad wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our leaders simply have not learned that lesson yet. Only God knows when they will.

In the meantime the actual enemy, the supposedly declining Taliban, has surged in its southern homeland. They recently launched the most devastating attack on a military base of the war, resulting in at least $200 million in allied loses. It's their first attack that might even faintly be compared to those the Vietnamese launched against American bases in the 1960s.

Earlier, I stated that the joint Afghan-American patrols that are a key part of the training mission have been suspended, deemed too dangerous to risk American lives. Those patrols were recently reinstated. Guess what happened next.

After a heavy weekend of violence, in still another green-on-blue incident a suicide bomber attacked NATO and Afghan forces, killing at least 14 on Oct 1^st in the southeastern town of Khost. The attack came just two days after the 2,000th American died in Afghanistan in a green-on-blue confrontation between US and Afghan soldiers southwest of Kabul.

The Christian Science Monitor reported recently that while the US has seen a consistent drop in the rate of fatalities starting last year, attacks by Afghan soldiers and police on NATO forces have become a high-profile problem with no obvious solution.

Gen. John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, expressed his frustration about insider attacks and warned that more should be expected. He stated, ""I'm mad as hell about them, to be honest with you. We're going to get after this. It reverberates everywhere, across the United States. You know, we're willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we're not willing to be murdered for it."   

"At some level, when you make a decision to continue waging a war, losing lives and money, you make a decision that hopefully what you can get in exchange for that is worth it," says Stephen Biddle, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and a former adviser to retired Gen. David Petraeus. 

"At some point it will reach the point where what we get is no longer worth American lives."

Amen

Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch and Arthur Bright , staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor contributed to this report.  

Authors Bio:
I am the author of two novels, "The Bode Testament" and "Impeachment." I am also a columnist who keeps a wary eye on other columnists and the failures of the MSM (mainstream media).

I was born in Minnesota, and, to this day, I love the Vikings and the Twins. I am currently retired and reside with my wife of 45 years in Southern California. I am a former educator and a Marine officer [ret.].

I am a self-described amateur historian, the love of the topic going back to my sophomore days in high school. I am probably the only high schooler in the U.S. to read the 1600-page "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." I also consider myself somewhat of a specialist on the Middle East. The vast bulk of my articles concern the topic.

Not unlike many I was devastated by the attacks on 9/11. So devastated, in fact, that I was determined to fight back, following in the fine tradition of the Marine Corps. But how? What could a 58-year old retired Marine officer do in terms of fighting back. The answer was quite simple. Using the writing skills I learned while writing two books, I chose as my weapon what can euphemistically be called the pen, actually a word processor.

I was determined to become a columnist to offer my sage advice while recalling recent history that I know for a fact that Americans had long since forgotten. I am here to remind them.

Fortunately, achieving the goal of becoming a columnist did not take too long. I became a columnist for a Midwest newspaper in Nov. 2001. As an added bonus, all of my articles were placed on the Internet. I have been a columnist ever since, meaning for nine years.