CNN – Joshua Foust: Mass slaughter shocking, but not surprising
In a special piece for CNN, ASP fellow Joshua Foust writes about how Sunday’s mass murder is not a new outrage for Afghanistan and that the US lacks a political strategy for Afghanistan following the pullout.
Because there is no political strategy for the war — nothing that takes Afghan and Taliban politics into consideration — the U.S. has no concept of how to manage or react to the political consequences of incidents like Sunday’s rampage. That’s why the military was clueless in responding to last month’s Quran burnings, or to January’s Marine urination scandal, or to the “kill team” in Kandahar last year.
At this point, there is little the U.S. can do to salvage the situation in Afghanistan. Sunday’s mass killing is tragic but it is not a game-changing event. Focusing on a long-term commitment to working through Afghanistan politics is a good start — de-emphasizing the military’s role in the conflict and shifting to a politically and socially engaged role would actually address some of these shortcomings.
But shifting Afghanistan from a military engagement to a political one would, by design, extend U.S. operations there. An ABC News-Washington Post poll released Monday shows 60% of Americans no longer think the war is worth the costs. From the public’s perspective, the house of cards is falling and the U.S. would do best to just pull out and cut their losses.
Ultimately, Afghans will suffer the consequences — of Sunday’s raid, of the war, of America’s withdrawal from the region. Abandoning Afghanistan will impose huge costs in Afghanistan but the last ten years of directionless fighting has left Americans tired and frustrated with a war that seems to go nowhere but down. There needs to be a long-term strategy for the country but, especially now, it probably won’t happen.
