H.D.S. Greenway: An Unlikely Exit from Afghanistan
[H.D.S. Greenway’s column appears regularly in the Globe.]
This new year will mark the second decade of America’s war in Afghanistan — already longer than Russia’s war, and longer than any of the three the British fought in the previous two centuries trying to bend Afghanistan to their will.
Following a catastrophic defeat during the first Afghan war 170 years ago, the British sent another army, calling it the “Army of Retribution.’’ We don’t label our war aims quite so frankly these days, but, in effect, that was America’s goal a decade ago: to inflict retribution on Al Qaeda and its enablers, the Taliban, in the wake of 9/11.
The goals have shifted many times since, but we now seem to have settled on our war aims: Not to create a “21st century Afghanistan,’’ said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, nor a country “free of corruption,’’ but simply to reduce the Taliban so that Afghan forces can deal with them, hopefully by 2014.
What are the prospects of achieving this goal?..
Read entire article at Boston Globe
This new year will mark the second decade of America’s war in Afghanistan — already longer than Russia’s war, and longer than any of the three the British fought in the previous two centuries trying to bend Afghanistan to their will.
Following a catastrophic defeat during the first Afghan war 170 years ago, the British sent another army, calling it the “Army of Retribution.’’ We don’t label our war aims quite so frankly these days, but, in effect, that was America’s goal a decade ago: to inflict retribution on Al Qaeda and its enablers, the Taliban, in the wake of 9/11.
The goals have shifted many times since, but we now seem to have settled on our war aims: Not to create a “21st century Afghanistan,’’ said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, nor a country “free of corruption,’’ but simply to reduce the Taliban so that Afghan forces can deal with them, hopefully by 2014.
What are the prospects of achieving this goal?..