An ABC News poll has found that 45% of Americans surveyed now believe that the Afghanistan war just isn't worth fighting any longer.
51% now believe the US military effort in that country has been unsuccessful. The numbers reflect a sharp slump from the massive support received from the American people when the war began in 2001.
"For Sholom Keller, a veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it comes as no surprise that support for the war in Afghanistan is fading.
"I'm not shocked at all that American support is waning," Keller told ABC News.com. "If we are in Afghanistan because the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, then I want to see the perpetrators captured and brought to justice.
"If we're not finding them in Afghanistan, then I don't know why we're there," he added. "And if they are there I want to know why we haven't found them in the last seven years if they've been giving troops the right intelligence and missions."
The poll is reflective of the Achilles' Heel of counter-insurgency war waged by any democracy; the insurgents merely have to win the "hearts and minds" of their own people and they can take their time doing it while the foreign military force cannot afford to lose either in-country or at home and must win decisively and reasonably quickly. Time is on the side of the home team, not the visitors and, in counter-insurgency warfare, time is very much "of the essence."
Despite all the historical precedents and even the clear warnings of people like General David Petraeus, American and NATO leaders never let the issue of "time" cross their lips.
The Americans don't acknowledge the time factor because that would mean they might have to account for the losing effort they've made since 2001 which would, in turn, lead to why they lied themselves out of Afghanistan and into Iraq which would then lead to why they ignored sound military advice and pursued their sophomoric ideology in waging that war.
Canadian and other NATO nation leaders don't acknowledge the time factor either because that would mean they too might have to account for the losing effort they've made since 2001 which would, in turn, lead to why they went to Afghanistan in the first place and why they continued to carry water for the White House well after it became clear that we'd all been lied to about Iraq and that Washington, the ally we were ostensibly in Kandahar to support, had all but completely turned its own back on Afghanistan.
Paul Martin was duped into expanding the Canadian mission from Kabul into Kandahar by a swaggering Newf who was "all hat and no cattle" and who has now slipped away into retirement having waged an enormously successful PR campaign and a disastrous military one. Monica Harper, well, I don't need to go into that. Our own Stephane Dion? When it came time to stand up for principle he decided he wasn't ready to fight an election. He put his personal political fortunes ahead of the lives of our soldiers and capitulated to an extension of "the mission" to 2011 and, in reality, well beyond.
So the irony is that we're neatly locked in to the mission in Afghanistan while the American people steadily sour on it. We'll continue to squander the lives of our soldiers while ensuring they'll never win, like Hillier, leaving the failure for someone else to shoulder.
"Ensuring they'll never win?" Sounds a trifle "over the top" doesn't it? Yet that's just what we're doing. We don't have a "winning army" of 500,000-800,000 soldiers and, no matter what happens in Iraq, it's unlikely we'll ever have a quarter of that force. We haven't yet acknowledged much less excised the cancer spreading through that country, the "nexus" of a corrupt government; warlords, drug barons and other criminals; and the insurgents themselves. That's right, they're all connected. Sometimes they're actually indistinguishable. We aren't willing, at least not yet, to recognize that this has grown into a regional war, not just in the southern, Pashtun regions of Afghanistan but into the greater region extending from Pakistan through to Iran. We don't have any game plan for dealing with a much wider war even as that draws closer to our lines.
NATO member support for the Afghan war is flagging. Those already in are looking for the exits and those who've stayed out look on this debacle and breathe a quiet sigh of relief.
We're stuck in a time warp, continuing to fight a Cold War "military" war, insanely expecting the opposition to come out and stand up so we can bomb and shell them into oblivion while pretty much ignoring their war, the political war, the war that truly matters and that will decide the outcome of this conflict at the end of the day.
In these conditions it's hardly likely that American support for the Afghan war can or will be rebuilt. What we need to worry about is when their loss of confidence in "the mission" will reach political critical mass.
51% now believe the US military effort in that country has been unsuccessful. The numbers reflect a sharp slump from the massive support received from the American people when the war began in 2001.
"For Sholom Keller, a veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it comes as no surprise that support for the war in Afghanistan is fading.
"I'm not shocked at all that American support is waning," Keller told ABC News.com. "If we are in Afghanistan because the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, then I want to see the perpetrators captured and brought to justice.
"If we're not finding them in Afghanistan, then I don't know why we're there," he added. "And if they are there I want to know why we haven't found them in the last seven years if they've been giving troops the right intelligence and missions."
The poll is reflective of the Achilles' Heel of counter-insurgency war waged by any democracy; the insurgents merely have to win the "hearts and minds" of their own people and they can take their time doing it while the foreign military force cannot afford to lose either in-country or at home and must win decisively and reasonably quickly. Time is on the side of the home team, not the visitors and, in counter-insurgency warfare, time is very much "of the essence."
Despite all the historical precedents and even the clear warnings of people like General David Petraeus, American and NATO leaders never let the issue of "time" cross their lips.
The Americans don't acknowledge the time factor because that would mean they might have to account for the losing effort they've made since 2001 which would, in turn, lead to why they lied themselves out of Afghanistan and into Iraq which would then lead to why they ignored sound military advice and pursued their sophomoric ideology in waging that war.
Canadian and other NATO nation leaders don't acknowledge the time factor either because that would mean they too might have to account for the losing effort they've made since 2001 which would, in turn, lead to why they went to Afghanistan in the first place and why they continued to carry water for the White House well after it became clear that we'd all been lied to about Iraq and that Washington, the ally we were ostensibly in Kandahar to support, had all but completely turned its own back on Afghanistan.
Paul Martin was duped into expanding the Canadian mission from Kabul into Kandahar by a swaggering Newf who was "all hat and no cattle" and who has now slipped away into retirement having waged an enormously successful PR campaign and a disastrous military one. Monica Harper, well, I don't need to go into that. Our own Stephane Dion? When it came time to stand up for principle he decided he wasn't ready to fight an election. He put his personal political fortunes ahead of the lives of our soldiers and capitulated to an extension of "the mission" to 2011 and, in reality, well beyond.
So the irony is that we're neatly locked in to the mission in Afghanistan while the American people steadily sour on it. We'll continue to squander the lives of our soldiers while ensuring they'll never win, like Hillier, leaving the failure for someone else to shoulder.
"Ensuring they'll never win?" Sounds a trifle "over the top" doesn't it? Yet that's just what we're doing. We don't have a "winning army" of 500,000-800,000 soldiers and, no matter what happens in Iraq, it's unlikely we'll ever have a quarter of that force. We haven't yet acknowledged much less excised the cancer spreading through that country, the "nexus" of a corrupt government; warlords, drug barons and other criminals; and the insurgents themselves. That's right, they're all connected. Sometimes they're actually indistinguishable. We aren't willing, at least not yet, to recognize that this has grown into a regional war, not just in the southern, Pashtun regions of Afghanistan but into the greater region extending from Pakistan through to Iran. We don't have any game plan for dealing with a much wider war even as that draws closer to our lines.
NATO member support for the Afghan war is flagging. Those already in are looking for the exits and those who've stayed out look on this debacle and breathe a quiet sigh of relief.
We're stuck in a time warp, continuing to fight a Cold War "military" war, insanely expecting the opposition to come out and stand up so we can bomb and shell them into oblivion while pretty much ignoring their war, the political war, the war that truly matters and that will decide the outcome of this conflict at the end of the day.
In these conditions it's hardly likely that American support for the Afghan war can or will be rebuilt. What we need to worry about is when their loss of confidence in "the mission" will reach political critical mass.
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