Where Will We be in 2014?

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" ~ George Santayana

2014 is the year President Obama is claiming US Forces, well most of the conventional forces anyway, will complete their withdrawal from OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM – Afghanistan, and the majority of the nation will believe we’ve ended this war that has been going on since September 11, 2001.  The question is will we leave Afghanistan a better place, able to grow into a viable state, or will it be the same as we found it, a land locked country whose principle cash crop is opium, and the control of that crop goes to the strongest warlord?  Will the struggle for power continue as it was when the Soviets installed their puppet regime and were forced to leave, or will the warlords engage in something that looks like democratic politics?

I remember a phrase I first heard as a college senior, near the end of the Vietnam War.  On January 23, 1973, President Nixon announced to the nation that Henry Kissinger, representing the U.S., and Le Doc Tho, representing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, had reached agreement ending the war in Vietnam.  In that speech he indicated  this marked a turning point where the U.S. and South Vietnam, and North Vietnam had achieved a “Peace with Honor,” where our Prisoner’s of War would be returned, and the people of South Vietnam would have a right to determine their own future, without outside interference.  We know how well that peace was observed, but in the end it worked itself out.  Vietnam was not actually the domino so many thought it to be, and communism did not spread throughout the world to destroy capitalism.

But Afghanistan and the Islamic Jihad is a little bit different.  Today the threat isn’t with a political ideology but a political theology.  Afghanistan isn’t a surrogate for other states to play out their struggles, it is an incubation chamber where religious intolerance, and hatred is nurtured with the use of monies made from the sale of opium.  Just as the United States and European governments are turning away from the principles of Judeo-Christian government, the poorest countries are turning toward Islamic fundamentalism to combat the secular western influence.

So the question for our President and for all of us as we approach this withdrawal is how do you shape a nation who disagrees so violently with the fundamental tenets of a nation built on the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of justice that no matter how hard our secular government tries it can never be viewed as an ally?  When we leave Afghanistan will we have this generations “Peace with Honor” moment where it is just a matter of time until the western backed government falls to the Taliban extremists and we return to the days of blowing up Buddhist statues as they did in the 1990’s, while the world cried out its outrage but did little more?