Obama is blind that Afghanistan is a lost cause

A Quickie:

Obama's centrist militant blather about moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is a sign that he really doesn't offer any change in foreign policy principles and is just offering the usual political bait and switch for political expediency. He doesn't have a clue about real change in foreign policy, such as what Dennis Kucinich means by not using war as an instrument of foreign policy.

Afghanistan is already a lost cause for US foreign policy, and unless a radical change in direction is made in the policy toward Afghanistan -- a change in fundamental principles in foreign relations -- Afghanistan will continue to be lost.

We are aiding and abetting the war lords and drug lords growing opium poppies and the opium trade is as high as it has ever been. We are supporting Hamid Karzai who is protecting the war lords from prosecution, while the war lords continue to prevent the development of democracy in their territories. Karzai has hardly any influence beyond Kabul and only has that control because he won't challenge the war lords and local dictators.

Our current policy in Afghanistan puts the local villagers in direct danger by leaving them defenseless to the Taliban insurgents after the US and NATO troops pass through. There is no Afghanistan structure for local village defense and self rule. In much if not most of Afghanistan, women are still as oppressed under the current government as they were before.

In sum, the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan as much as we have failed in Iraq to understand the people and the conflicts and to support the real education in democracy and reform; instead we have merely supported hacks and gangsters in the Afghanistan government.

We have already lost Afghanistan and transferring more troops there will only prolong the agony because there is no realistic goal nor is there strategy to attain the goal.

This comment is responding to Earl Ofari Hutchinson's column at the
Huffington Post and comments at The Young Turks.