Time to Leave Afghanistan
By Tom Henkel
(continued)
... did not take place. Voter participation was low and election fraud was widespread. In fact, it is not
clear to us that Afghanistan is culturally ready for a democratic form of government.
This Washington Post story makes it clear that our troops are in the middle of a civil war that has been
going on for almost 40 years between the educated elite living in the cities (roughly 20% of the population)
and the remaining poor and uneducated living in rural areas. The Afghanistan Taliban are primarily interested
in winning their internal civil war, and they would not be a military threat to any US interests we are
aware of if our troops were not in the country.
The Bush administration reportedly had negotiations with the Taliban government in the Spring and Summer
of 2001 for the purposes of western oil interests constructing a pipeline through Afghanistan to transport
oil and gas from the former Soviet states bordering that country south to an ocean seaport. As part of any
deal, the Taliban government was reported ready to turn over bin Laden and his Al Qaeda leadership. These
negotiations broke down in July, 2001, so no deal was made regarding the pipeline and the Taliban continued
to permit Al Qaeda training camps to function. The US originally invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 to seek out
and capture or kill bin Laden and to destroy his Al Qaeda organization so that it could no longer organize
attacks on the US and other countries. It is unclear if we also brought down the Taliban government and
installed the Karzai government in oder to build the pipeline. Regardless, bin Laden and the Al Qaeda
leadership apparently escaped to the tribal areas of Pakistan, where we have been slowing eliminating that
organization through covert CIA activities, so that now only about 100 hard-core members survive.
If ours and NATO military forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan and a Taliban government is again formed,
it seems to us that the Taliban are just as likely to keep Al Qaeda out as to let them back in, as the "war
supporters" believe.
After all, they seem to be nationalists, and it is hard to believe that they would want continued covert
CIA action against Al Qaeda on their home Afghanistan territory which endanger civilians. If the Bush
administration could negotiate with the Afghan Taliban in 2001, then so can the Obama administration to
seek some sort of agreement with the Karzai government for more secure conditions so that our military forces
can be withdrawn.
Therefore, we urge you not to support any additional funding to send more troops to Afghanistan, and
to join with House colleagues who are seeking to withdraw our forces and to end our military involvement in Afghanistan.
December 2nd, 2009
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