McChrystal, Petraeus...Who Cares?

As Senate starts the confirmation hearings for General David Petraeus as a replacement for the intemperate General Stanley McChrystal, his overall mission in Afghanistan comes into focus.

"In some ways, the hearing will echo much of what Petraeus told the Senate and House armed-services committees recently, as nervous lawmakers sought his calm demeanor to soothe their own heebie-jeebies over a war that increasingly seems bogged down. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate panel, said Monday that it is likely to zero in on two key questions: How firm is President Obama's July 2011 date to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and why isn't the Afghan military doing more to defeat the Taliban?"

Instead of asking whether we can possibly start to withdraw troops at some point next year (and by "withdraw", we're probably talking the same, slow process that have seen American troops "withdraw" from Korea following the Korean War over half a century ago) Americans should be asking why our military is still in Afghanistan right now at all. Now the longest-running war in US history, the fight in Afghanistan has rolled on for years without much visible progress.

Afghanistan is still economically dependent on drug sales, Taliban warlords still control a good part of the country and people there are still openly hostile to Western society.

If we're concerned that upon leaving the Taliban will return to complete power and provide Al Qaeda with a safe haven to conduct their nefarious operations, well they're already currently able to operate with impunity from the badlands of Pakistan.

Besides, the true key to defeating Al Qaeda has never been about meeting them on an open battle field and obliterating them, but rather scaling back our overly-aggressive foreign policy we have adopted over the past 70 years in which we interfere in foreign elections and politics, and occupy countries on a whim.