Asking the wrong question……..

As the “Teflon General” gets settled in and takes charge of America’s on going war without end in Afghanistan, Raymond Bonner asks the question we should have asked ourselves a long time ago:

I was reminded of this when I read Jim Fallows post in which he said he would be examining the AfPak Wikileaks documents with one question in mind: Can the Afghanistan project work? In other words, can we win?

It’s the wrong question, Jim. (We’ve been friends since our days as “Nader’s Raiders.”) The question is, should we be there at all?” (Emphasis mine).

Bonner then goes on to rip apart the core argument that neo-cons advance over and over again, that we have a moral imperative to be bogged down forever in a country that cannot or will not help itself. Regardless of the cost in dollars, the end of America’s leading position in the world,the empowerment of Iran and Pakistan; the deaths of hundreds of thousands or the wounds of countless more. Because a “moral imperative is a slippery slope-unless you are prepared to deal with all the injustices in the world-what makes this particular one more important than say, the countless tragedies that are happening in Africa, for example.

Many would argue that the United States now has a “moral obligation” to the Afghanistan people. We intervened to help defeat the Soviet Union, then withdrew, leaving the Afghans at the mercy of the Taliban. Do we withdraw again because we have required our objectives, leaving the country in shambles, at the mercy of the Taliban.

In law school, they teach, “ask your question, get your answer.”

If the question is, do we have a moral obligation, to insure that little girls can go to school, that women are not stoned to death, most would answer, “we should be there.”

But what if the question is, are you willing to send your son or daughter to die in Afghanistan, so that children can fly kites, women can work outside the home?

These are different questions than “can we win,” and the answers won’t be found in any of the 92,000 Wikileak documents.

And maybe, just maybe there is a limit to what we can do abroad. Perhaps the only way to win-is not to play. And by turn-spend our energies fixing up America so it really can be that “beacon of light” we so often talk about. (Without understanding what it really means.)