Intransigence is all Around, Military Still in Town

Last night a somber President Obama explained to a room full of young US military officers why he was sending them to Afghanistan. To begin, Obama effectively re-tied Afghanistan to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The President reminded us that nearly everyone agreed, at the time, invading that country was necessary to prevent further attacks on the US. Building on that, Obama argued that there is a resurgence of long-range terrorist strike capability in the region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. His conclusion is increased military involvement in the short term is necessary to reduce the capability of harm and to stabilize the Afghan government so it can protect and provide for its people.

Put in other terms, it's a continuation of the belief that it is better to inflict violence and death THERE so we don't have those things HERE. Regardless of whether I judge that as just or as a necessary evil or as simply evil, I believe it's important to state it honestly. Even the stabilization of Afghanistan requires the calculation that it is okay to kill some innocent people as long as it saves other innocent people.

Securing our safety and their safety are virtuous objectives, the highest calling of the human race. But it seems to me that a misbelief continues, firmly entrenched, in our attempts to reach these objectives: the misbelief that violence will ever end violence.

I hope for the safety of that beautiful country and my beautiful Afghan brothers and sisters. I ache for the violence and fear brought to them by those with evil intentions, and those with virtuous intentions.



As I mentioned, the President gave his speech to West Point cadets. I noticed that the name of the hall was Eisenhower Hall. It seems appropriate, then, to quote President Eisenhower, to quote beliefs he formed after witnessing the horrors of war.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Under the Crescent Moon

This week I read the astounding, first-hand account of a New York Times reporter who was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan, along with his translator and driver.


All were held hostage in Pakistan for over 7 months, before he and his translator escaped. The story is a chilling portrait of the mindset of the fighters and a discouraging look into the political realities of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The story is fascinating for many reasons, but it is also timely given the tipping point that the U.S. seems to be at with its battle in Afghanistan and Pakistan. President Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan this year, and more already on the way, which will bring the total there to 68,000. And the general in command in Afghanistan has requested more troops, up to 40,000 more. Meanwhile Afghanistan is trying to hold a runoff presidential election, and Pakistan seems to actually be taking on the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda that has taken over parts of Pakistan.

It's tempting to read stories like this hostage one, remember that a US soldier is being held hostage there, see the mounting deaths of Americans and Afghanis, military and civilian, and just say, "Get us out of there."

How do you weigh the cost of staying against the cost of leaving? Yes, the reality is gut-wrenching with unyielding anger and senseless violence, and maddening with its futility of political partnerships and inconsistent Western involvement. But there are also those, like the translator held hostage, who are the larger part of the population and who would partner with legitimate and consistent efforts to bring peace to their families. I saw it put this way recently:

The hell of withdrawal is what kind of drama would fill the vacuum, who would re-emerge, who would be empowered, what Pakistan would look like with a newly redrawn reality in the neighborhood, what tremors would shake the ground there as the U.S. troops march out. It is the hell of a great nation that had made a commitment in retreat, abandoning not only its investment of blood and treasure but those on the ground, and elsewhere, who had one way or another cast their lot with us. It would involve the hell, too, of a U.N. commitment, an allied commitment, deflated to the point of collapse.

The hell of staying is equally clear, and vivid: more loss of American and allied troops, more damage to men and resources, an American national debate that would be a continuing wound and possibly a debilitating one, an overstretched military given no relief and in fact stretched thinner, a huge and continuing financial cost in a time when our economy is low. There is no particular guarantee of, or even a completely persuasive definition of, success. And Pakistan may blow anyway.

The debate is over which hell is less damaging in the long term, which hell is more livable.

So which hell is the better choice? Or is there an alternative? Are the only choices abandoning the vulnerable population or waging an ugly and violent war?