Should the U.S. stay the course in Afghanistan?

No

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by Gerard Coulombe

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Anyone who uses a quote, "With great power comes great responsibility," [Answers.com] attributed to Spider Man's uncle, Peter Parker, to back up the argument that we should stay the course and win more support for this goal, ought not to be believed.

But FDR [News from me Archives-10-6-2005] might have spoken the words when he wrote for a Jefferson Day dinner that was never given because he died the day before the speech was to be delivered wrote, "Today we have learned in the agony of war that great power involves great responsibility."

At the time, Roosevelt, a wartime President, was alluding to the military might of the United States.

A. The United States ought not stay the course in Afghanistan. The original mission of our forces should remain what it was initially. In the original mission, the US set out to go after Bin Laden, his cohorts and supporters in the Taliban. This should not change.

B. Anyone who has read history ought to know that wars have been fought with tremendous sacrifice and equally tremendous bungling.

C. Think of it: We had sea power and air power in WWII and Korea. In Afghanistan, what have we got? A tribal land in a landlocked country in a Muslim world.

D. Supplying Afghanistan depends on inconsistently sustainable supply routes that are kept open by tenuous agreements, which still fail as supplies come under sabotage attacks in transit or in holding depots awaiting safe "transit" through "enemy" territory to re-supply our troops.

There are those who advocate a return to the original mission.

A. Slowly, safely, and methodically, scout the enemy and take them out in small units. Retreat and repeat. Vary your strikes. Make them as close to the border as possible. Protect yourselves from ambushes on your own troops.

B. Train small units of trusted and reliable Afghans to operate from outposts close to the major cities and in the safer provinces.

C. Increase security in the major cities.

D. Let us win the war before we risk the lives of civilian advisers in our efforts to bring Afghans into the 21st Century.

E. Let us remember that Afghan Taliban have the mountains at their backs, their brethren as protectors and safe haven on the Pakistani side of the mountainous border.

F. Use technology and Special Forces on targeted missions to accomplish our goals against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda targets including training sites.

In other words, the current mission as it is being executed cannot be sustained. The mission ought to be redefined. The course ought to be adjusted to limit the personnel trained for the mission of hunting down both Al Qaeda with Bin Laden at its head and Taliban Chief Mullah Omar for his complicity in the 911 attack.

The goal ought to be to choke the trail heads to and from Pakistan with limited ambushes and traps of our own rather than those turned on our troops operating from advanced strongholds that cannot withstand concentrated fire from the hills surrounding them.

The French in Vietnam learned they could not stem the tide from their redoubt in a clearing when surrounded by Vietnamese troops operating at will from the surrounding forests.

Let us not stay the course but rather change the course. And while doing so, let us also refine our tactics. We do have superior weapons, some of which we cannot use for all the innocents that even targeted bombs kill. But we can use other sophisticated methods conceived with more sophistication than those attributed to that of our enemies hiding in plain sight.

This is not a job for Spider Man. It is a job for American soldiers trained in this kind of warfare. They may not be spider men, but they are special.

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