Afghanistan

In earlier posts, I have expressed my opinion that we can no longer assume the role of the World’s cop. Recently there has been talk of reducing our presence in other countries like Syria and Iraq, but little mention of Afghanistan. I wonder why not.

Following are a few facts:

We have had a military presence in Afghanistan since 2001 (over 18 years) and have spent approximately $750 billion in direct costs and as much as $2 trillion when you include indirect and long-term costs, like veteran rehabilitation.  As of July 27, 2018, there have been 2,372 U.S. military deaths in the War in Afghanistan. 1,856 of these deaths have been the result of hostile action. 20,320 American service members have also been wounded in action during the war. In addition, there were 1,720 U.S. civilian contractor fatalities.

While I have some sympathy for the reason which we used to justify our involvement (the pursuit of Asama Bin Laden), what remains is essentially a “civil” conflict. My understanding is that we still have approximately 14,000 military personnel in Afghanistan and have agreed to eventually remove 5,000 within 135 days of the signing of a peace proposal with the Taliban.

Which of our elected representatives is talking about this issue?