 A report by professional lefties scholars and wonks policymakers declares that the United States does not need to defeat the Taliban, describing it as a local faction that is unlikely to regain control of Afghanistan and who cares anyway?. The United States should bug out scale back troops and goals in Afghanistan as its military campaign has backfired and boosted the Taliban, according to the study, billed as a Plan B for Obama.
| And then spend the money saved on health care ... |
"What we have been doing for several years is not just failing but counterproductive," said Matthew Hoh, the director of the Afghanistan Study Group. "
We need to provide the Oval Office with another alternative," said Hoh, a former Marine who resigned from a State Department position last year due to disagreements over Afghan policy.
Study authors described it as non-partisan, but coincidentally many involved are critical of the war. Representative Mike Honda, a liberal California Democrat, praised the report and called for a congressionally mandated version along the lines of the influential 2006 study on Iraq. The report "offers a much-needed rethink on the war in Afghanistan, especially given Washington's near-silence on alternatives," said Honda, whose policy advisor Michael Shank coincidentally participated in the study.
US policy "has lost sight of any careful comparison between the cost and benefit of waging the continued counter-insurgency there," said Paul Pillar, a Georgetown University professor and former CIA analyst. The study called on Obama to go ahead or even speed up the July 2011 deadline for pulling troops out of Afghanistan.| The report further suggested that there would be no shame if the troops were to panic, throw their weapons to the ground, and flee screaming and crying. |
It argued that the US military footprint had radicalized the normally placid Pashtun, who have turned to Islamic terrorism insurgency as a way to drive out infidels foreign troops. "The goal of defeating the Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan has come to be treated as a kind of end in itself. It is not," Pillar said.
The study stopped short of frankness recommending a complete pullout, saying the United States should be ready to destroy any Al-Qaeda cell that regroups after they leave. It also disputed that a US drawdown would hurt Afghan women.Several scholars who worked on the Afghanistan Study Group declined to sign it, some saying it downplayed a real threat from Taliban or did not pay enough attention to neighboring Pakistan.
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