The Afghanistan War is “Another No Win Situation”

U.S. Marines with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 3, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, along with approximately 650 Afghan soldiers and police officers from the Afghan National Security Force (ANSF), prepare to board CH-53D Sea Stallion and CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters at Forward Operating Base Dwyer, Afghanistan, July 2, 2009. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Philippe E. Chasse/Released)

In The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan writes that the war in Afghanistan, America’s longest, “has become another no-win situation.” Now, he continues, it looks as if Pentagon war-planners are preparing to involve American forces more deeply in Ukraine. Pat writes (abridged):

“It is time for this war in Afghanistan to end,” said General John Nicholson in Kabul on his retirement Sunday after a fourth tour of duty and 31 months as commander of U.S. and NATO forces.

Labor Day brought news that another U.S. serviceman had been killed in an insider attack by an Afghan soldier.

Why do we continue to fight in Afghanistan?

“We continue to fight simply because we are there,” said retired General Karl Eikenberry who preceded Nicholson.

“Absent political guidance and a diplomatic strategy,” Eikenberry told the New York Times, “military commanders have filled the vacuum by waging a war all agree cannot be won militarily.”

This longest war in U.S. history has become another no-win situation.

Now we appear to be moving towards confronting Russia in Ukraine.

In an interview with The Guardian last week, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker said Washington is ready to build up Ukraine’s naval and air defense forces, given Russia’s continued support for separatists in the Donbass. The administration is “absolutely” prepared to supply new lethal weaponry, beyond the Javelin anti-tank missiles delivered in April.

But if a Ukrainian army moves against pro-Russian rebels in Luhansk and Donetsk, and Russia intervenes on the side of the rebels, are we really prepared to come to the aid of the Ukrainian army?

President Trump has yet to withdraw us from any of the wars he inherited, but he has kept us out of any new wars. That’s a record worth preserving.