The Days of Perpetual War Must End

Daniel L. Davis

Security, Middle East

A Five-Step Plan to End America's Fruitless Fight in Afghanistan.

Since the tragic events of  September 11th, a core tenet of U.S. engagement with the rest of the world has been deploying military force against terrorists abroad and denying them territory from which to launch new attacks. Considerable data is now piling up that proves these nonstop military actions have not squelched the terrorist threat, but have increased risk to the United States. Flatly stated, evidence confirms the employment of lethal military power that we have relied on for the past fifteen years has failed to protect America. It is important that the creators and practitioners of U.S. foreign policy at the State Department and the White House do not merely cease these counterproductive actions, but discard the martial philosophy that spawns these actions and replace it with a superior product.

Many of America’s most senior and respected voices have been telling the public for years that our overseas wars have been waged to prevent terrorists from plotting attacks against the United States. For example, at a speech commemorating the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said “Afghan soil must never again be used by elements that would use terror to attack the people of America, Afghanistan, or the international community.”    

But we must ask the question: does it make sense for Washington to prevent the physical territory of Afghanistan from being used as a terrorist platform? Is there something special about the land in Afghanistan and Iraq that the United States must wage wars to prevent radicals from operating there? It doesn’t take much inspection to realize that such an objective could never actually be attained. Even if by some miracle, we did secure that one country at great cost, the United States would not be safer.