Hundreds of Afghan troops have been fired since U.S. and Afghan leaders chose to rescreen the entire army and police force in hopes of eliminating Taliban insurgents. US forces have seen a sharp increase in attacks by Afghan troops which has prompted the re-screening and several other policy changes from military leaders. Lt. General James Terry, deputy commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan said that he hopes to “drive down and defeat” this insider threat by re-screening the Afghan army.
While this is a step in the right direction to reduce US causalities, it seems like nobody is asking the real question of “Why are we still there?” At this point, the entire mission can be reduced to an intelligence gathering and drone operation – instead of placing our soldiers in harm’s way as “peacekeepers.” Regardless of how much time and money we commit to the country, I don’t think anything good is going to happen when we leave in 2014 or beyond. Afghanistan is very different from Iraq and the long-term prospects of success are not good. Our soldiers have performed brillantly in eliminating terrorist leaders and giving the Afghan people better lives, but the costs are now simply too high. Going forward, the U.S. should adopt a strategy similar to Pakistan - which is based on solid intelligence and missile strikes to keep insurgents on the offensive.
Comments