Afghan War to End in 2014

I saw an article in today's paper about the Obama administration saying they plan to bring the Afghan war to an end in 2014. That's interesting, since they likely will only be in power through 2012. What the heck are we doing over there, anyway?

The war is dragging on with little if any real progress. We trade territory with the Taliban, the Afghan Army and police seem unlikely to ever be able to take over, and we are ignoring the lessons of history. The Russians lost in their Afghan war. Are we doing anything other than repeating their mistakes?

As a recent article in The Atlantic (see "The Last Patrol" Nov. 2010) shows, even soldiers over there whose comrades are dying question the value of the military effort there. We read in the paper that Karzai gets bags of money from Iran and he admits it's true. Our noble American men and women are over there getting killed and wounded, and the locals neither appreciate their presence nor understand what we are trying to accomplish there.

We all remember Vietnam. We have seen Iraqmire, and we are seeing Afghanmire. The time to think seriously about ending these pointless foreign wars isn't three years from now, it is in 2011. I support the troops, so this isn't an issue of patriotism. It's an issue of recognizing that pointlessly continuing a misguided foreign policy has already been too costly, and needs to stop NOW.