Rory Stewart, M.P. (Conservative)
for Penrith & The Border
Why Debate the War?: The Real Reason We Are in Afghanistan
European countries feel trapped by their relationship with NATO and the United States. Holbrooke and Obama feel trapped by the position of American generals. And everyone -- politicians, generals, diplomats and journalist -- feels trapped by our grand theories and beset by the guilt of having already lost over a thousand NATO lives, spent a hundred billion dollars and made a number of promises to Afghans and the West which we are unlikely to be able to keep.....
European countries feel trapped by their relationship with NATO and the United States. Holbrooke and Obama feel trapped by the position of American generals. And everyone -- politicians, generals, diplomats and journalist -- feels trapped by our grand theories and beset by the guilt of having already lost over a thousand NATO lives, spent a hundred billion dollars and made a number of promises to Afghans and the West which we are unlikely to be able to keep.....
Rory Stewart is evolving toward a view that is less a coherent critique of the war than a cosmology of Afghanistan that is about as true and useful as saying 'Nothing really matters because in the end all is human vanity and we're all dead men anyway.' That is, unassailably true and utterly useless.
ReplyDeleteThis is welcome fodder for Europeans, especially; I'm not sure it works for any American who remembers 9/11 and its unfinished business in his bones, as I expect Obama does, and accepts the vagaries and predicates of human nature, however hateful.
I, for one, am tired of Stewart's holier-than-thou shifts with the prevailing wind. It's as if he mostly enjoys hearing himself talk -- which makes Penrith and the Border and Parliament good places for him..
>Russ Hoyle
I admit to laziness in liking Stewart's snide remarks.
ReplyDeleteIt is useless as you point out to say that we will be there forever because we can't see our way clear to getting out.
I agree that it is unacceptable politically - and with cause - to allow the Taliban to retake Kabul. They are the force who sheltered Bin Laden and sheer self-preservation justifies the war against them. The problem is that the society there is so weak that there is little cause for optimism.