November 03, 2009

Pull the Plug on Afghanistan

by KT McFarland    - FOXNews.com  - 

Rather than prop up a corrupt and incompetent President Karzai in a country where Al Qaeda is no more, we should instead give Pakistan’s president all the help to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. 

President Karzai of Afghanistan has just stolen an election and gotten away with it. Despite being universally criticized as corrupt and incompetent, he is likely to rule Afghanistan for another five years.

And we’re expecting American men and women to fight and die to defend his regime? This is nuts, especially if the country descends into civil war and we’re expected to take sides. It’s time to pull the plug on President Karzai and reconnect with our primary national security objective – defeating Al Qaeda — not just in Afghanistan but worldwide.

We invaded Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda, and we succeeded — years ago. We defeated Al Qaeda, and toppled their Taliban government hosts in a matter of months. But we then fell victim to mission creep. We stayed to help the Afghanis form a new government; write a constitution; create and train their army and police forces; build their economy; eradicate the poppy crop, and now to fight a growing militancy and a resurgent Taliban. Despite eight years of an ever-expanding mission, we’re losing the fight in Afghanistan. According to our top commander in Afghanistan, the much respected Gen. McChrystal, we’re facing certain defeat if we don’t change strategies and increase our troop strength.

via Pull the Plug on Afghanistan – FOXNews.com .