That was never going to happen, even if some in the current and previous administrations believed otherwise. That goal can only be achieved as it was in post-war Germany and Japan: With about a quarter million soldiers imposing and maintaining martial law for a decade or so to fully prevent "insurgency" (a term I still think misapplied; most Afghan "insurgents" are NATIVES: WE are the foreigners.) Mass re-education of the populace to instill democratic principles and eradicate authoritarian ones is also indispensable.

That we never so much as attempted that speaks volumes about the sincerity of our stated goal to "spread democracy." We lack the manpower, money and political patience for a decade (or more; the Allies did not relinquish their last role in West Germanys government until around 1990) of full scale occupation, and knew that before one soldier set foot in Afghanistan (or Iraq.) The greatest evidence the administration did not truly seek to "impose democracy" (impossible in authoritarian cultures without aggressive indoctrination of the whole populace, and let us not kid ourselves about that) is that we never revived the draft necessary to provide the required garrison manpower.

Our FEASIBLE objective has been accomplished. If we left tomorrow the Taliban does not have the capital, technology or infrastructure to shelter and support anti-Western terrorists, nor the desire, given that we would simply drop a couple dozen daisy-cutters in the middle of any new terrorist training camps. It is not like the Taliban could build a Hitler style underground bunker to protect would be terrorists, or cram hundreds of them into it while preserving the means to train them. There is a reason most of Al Qaeda long ago fled to Pakistan, and the dispersion they chose for survival prevents concentrated large scale training for future terrorism.


We do not HAVE the right to throw that in as a bargaining chip at will; we forfeited it when we declined to intervene against dozens of other petty dictatorships around the world, and certainly when we opted to actively aid many of them. "Spreading democracy" did not motivate us to remove Mubarak; on the contrary, preventing terrorism motivated us to arm him with weapons he often used against his own citizens. Why do we not "spread democracy" to the Saudi monarchy that forbids women to drive and executes people for homosexuality, rather than selling them F-16s and Patriot missile systems? Because that is not among our priorities, rhetoric notwithstanding. We sacrificed the preeminent priority of democracy back in the fifties when we began staging coups any time a nations electorate "voted wrong" and democratically chose a communist government.

Sure, we CLAIMED spreading democracy among our motives, but our past and present record gives that the lie. Ultimately, it would not be our right or responsibility to impose democracy on the worlds various authoritarian countries even if we had the means (which we very much do not.) They must solve that problem for themselves; I agree with AIDING and SUPPORTING those of their citizens who try, but we literally CANNOT do it for them. We can knock down their old tyrant, but until/unless they gain some respect for and comprehension of democracy they will just replace it with another exactly like it. Hence I am not doing cartwheels over the fall of Egypts military junta or the rise of Turkeys theocratic party against theirs. Replacing a countrys current authoritarian regime is a necessary but not sufficient component of making it democratic; the new regime must be more democratic than the previous one or nothing changed save the letter head.


When we leave, the Taliban or anyone else running Afghanistan will be too busy rebuilding their shattered country with few resources to waste them hosting and sponsoring anti-Western terrorists. The Taliban is simply no longer a threat to the US; about the only thing that would change FOR AMERICA if they regained power is that the flow of Afghani heroin and opium would once again dry up because they hate drug dealers with a passion. They have neither means nor desire to pick another fight with the US once we leave, and great incentive to refrain from that. Our REAL mission--the only one ever possible to achieve without a far greater commitment than virtually any American will accept--has been accomplished.

Fortunately, US soldiers disgracefully profaning enemy corpses does not alter that, and does not doom our stated goal of "spreading democracy." Our insincerity and lack of means doomed THAT pretense from the outset. About the only thing we are still fighting for in Afghanistan or Iraq is to preserve a puppet government that possesses a large oil reserve and another that controls the land through which a pipeline could be built, thereby diminishing the threat of an anti-Western state gaining control of the Suez and/or Straits of Hormuz.