Hot Topic (10/3): Are the risks and costs in Afghanistan worth it?

[Cafe GroupAdmin]

Afghanistan: Why Obama is rethinking 'war of necessity'

Waning American support for the war and allegations of fraud in the Afghan elections have turned a policy review into a fervent debate about the Afghanistan conflict within the Obama administration.

Washington - But the White House review has since turned into a debate because it comes at a difficult moment for US involvement in Afghanistan. American public support for the war is waning, and a flawed Afghan presidential election in August has revealed the degree to which corruption permeates the country's political leadership.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is likely to emerge the winner in a review of the alleged frauds in the Aug. 20 election. But doubts about him and his government as a reliable partner in a counterinsurgency strategy are feeding proposals for alternative approaches. One idea would be to use few or no additional US troops, and focus instead on accelerating training of Afghan soldiers and police.

However, achieving Obama's goals in Afghanistan is not possible without additional resources, security analysts say.

"The most dubious argument out there is that you can somehow reduce the risks the situation in Afghanistan presents by also reducing the costs," says James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at Rand Corp. in Arlington, Va. There's no basis for the idea that you can achieve the same objectives at lower costs, he says.

But others have suggested that Afghanistan won't become an Al Qaeda haven even if a resurgent Taliban were to reestablish control over large sections of the country. And even if it did, some analysts say the US can't afford to "right" all states where such havens might arise - especially since terrorists targeting the US don't necessarily require a safe base from which to operate.

The current debate over Afghanistan inflates the threat that a potentially reestablished safe haven would pose to US security, said Paul Pillar, a former deputy director of the CIA's counterterrorist center, in a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post. The issue is not whether such a haven would be useful to terrorists, he wrote.

"Instead, the issue is whether preventing such a haven would reduce the terrorist threat to the US enough ... to offset the required expenditure of blood and treasure and the barriers to success in Afghanistan, including an ineffective regime and sagging support from the population," he wrote.

That argument reflects a legitimate weighing of the "risks and costs" of the Afghanistan war, says Mr. Dobbins, who was a special adviser on Afghanistan to both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

But should Obama stick to his counterinsurgency strategy, he adds, he will have little choice but to increase both troops and funding. "We've learned in the last few years in Iraq what we should have learned a number of times in the past," Dobbins says.

One lesson is simply "what the necessary elements of a counterinsurgency strategy are, but it's also the need to adequately resource such a strategy."

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Do you think the war in Afghanistan is worth the risks and costs? 

Can you explain why we are at war in Afghanistan?  Do you know what the objective is?

Do you know any deployed soldiers?  Does that knowledge influence your opinion?

[hsteele]

Do you think the war in Afghanistan is worth the risks and costs? 

No I don't. War is never worth the risks and costs, but Afghanistan is pointless. No matter how stable we make the government of Afghanistan there will always be parts of the country that will be difficult to reach, perfect hiding places for Al Qaeda. In addition, if it is an unstable government that creates the perfect home for terrorist groups, Al Qaeda could simply move to one of the unstable governments in Africa. You know?

Can you explain why we are at war in Afghanistan?  Do you know what the objective is?

I believe our goal is to neutralize the insurgency and stabilize the government so that Al Qaeda cannot function there. Al Qaeda is the reason we went there in the first place. They now say it is to free the Afghan people from the Taliban.

Do you know any deployed soldiers?  Does that knowledge influence your opinion?

Yes I do. My brother in law is a Marine. He actually went to Iraq 3 times. I don't think he has been deployed to Afghanistan, but I haven't talked to him in a while. My husband is Navy and is fortunately assigned to a carrier, so he is safer than us. lol

[cherry41089]

no!!!!!

[ncoleman2009]

No I don't not think the war in Afghanistan is worth the money we spend on it and the, and it da$$# sure ain't worth the countless people dying over there... I thought that they gave us a exact time to get from over there. What happened to that?