Afghanistan surge: After eight years, where's the ball?

Now that we're throwing our military resources into Afghanistan, the question comes up: Will it make a lick of difference?

My answer is no. If anything, the administration's decision to send some 30,000 more troops into that desert non-paradise only came about eight years too late.

Eight years ago, in the days after 9/11, I was as hawkish as they come -- by all means, send our boys in. Pave the country over. Nuke 'em 'til they glow, shoot 'em in the dark. All that good stuff.

But, see, our leaders (Bush then) totally lost sight of the enemy. It turns out that in late 2001, we had Osama bin Laden in our grasp, and the slippery little bugger got away again. By that time, though, our ADHD administration found bigger fish to fry. Like Iraq.

All of a sudden, Afghanistan went on the back burner while we focused on Saddam Hussein and his minions. Which is interesting; even the massive, 567-page 9/11 report discounts any Iraqi involvement in that terrorist attack.

... meetings between Iraqi officials or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of time of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen any evidence indicating that Iraq had cooperated with al-Quaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States ... (Page 66, The 9/11 Commission Report)

Meaning we took our eyes off the ball.

After eight years we have no clue where that ball is now, and it doesn't matter anyway because the game essentially ended years ago. We're lined up at midfield where we think they are, while they're really inside the 20 yard line.

By rights, the war in Afghanistan should have been quick and thorough. But in warfare, time is of the essence. You have only a small window of opportunity, and we were busy doing other things when that window slammed shut.

While I was upset that Barack Obama dithered three months before deciding to send more troops, that's just a drop in the bucket. We've engaged in some serious navel-gazing for eight years. With that in mind, what's another three months?

That old military saw, "Fight 'em over there so you don't have to fight 'em over here" doesn't apply here. But it does show us where the ball is. Guess what? We are fighting 'em over here. Every suicide bombing, every threat of a suicide bombing, every terror warning stateside, every nutball who flips out and shoots a bunch of what he calls "infidel dogs" at a military base, is proof positive that we are indeed fighting them here.

We had our chance. Now, unless some stunning new development happens overseas, we're relegated to fighting al-Quaeda over here.

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