Over the last several months, both the Obama and the McCain campaigns have taken the position that more NATO (i.e. American) troops are needed to fight the increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.  Although each Presidential candidate presented a completely different view on how the situation in Afghanistan became so hopelessly entangled, both candidates agreed that more military intervention is urgently needed.  It is totally incredulous that neither candidate is willing to publicly admit the stark truth; that no amount of U.S. led intervention in Afghanistan is going to change the landscape for very long.  The British tried it in 1919 and the Soviet Union tried it in 1989.  Both of these mighty world powers were eventually sent packing, after finally realizing that Afghanistan was unconquerable and ungovernable over the long run.

Yesterday, the top NATO general in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, admitted that after seven years, since the U.S invasion, insurgents hold more power and more Afghani territory than the U.S. backed government of Hamid Karzai.  Outside of the capital city of Kabul there is virtually no security for Afghani citizens, there has been absolutely no socio-economic progress made in seven years, insurgents hold positions of power in most of the tribal areas outside of Kabul, and the government is completely helpless in stemming the growth in Afghanistan’s number one export; heroin.  In fact, after carefully studying the situation, the U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that NATO troops are rapidly losing  any advantage they may have had at one time, and that the Taliban have become much stronger.  In addition, the Karzai government is generally blamed by the enraged local populations for the loss of innocent lives, resulting from NATO bombing attacks.

After a disastrous six years of war in Iraq, and after seven years of treading water in Afghanistan, it is time for the (soon to be) new American Administration to pack up the troops and leave both of these countries.  The only alternative would be for America to commit two hundred thousand troops to Afghanistan, in addition to the 150,000 troops already stationed in Iraq.  Even if the U.S. commits to these troop levels, it is unlikely that hostilities will ever cease without a political solution.  Sooner or later the Americans will be driven out of both Iraq and Afghanistan.  Let’s hope that the next administration in America makes to choice to get out, and to end the blood-bath once and for all.