Has Afghanistan Been Worth It?

U.S. Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Boom greets an Afghan boy while on a foot patrol in the Marzak Basin in Afghanistan's Paktika province, April 4, 2012. Boom is assigned to the 172nd Infantry Brigade. Members of the brigade were on their way to inspect the construction progress of Afghan police checkpoints in the area. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Charles Crail

Taking The Long View On Afghanistan -- DoD Buzz

A panel of senior ex-military and defense experts had no easy answers Wednesday for the near-term challenges of sequestration, world financial crisis, the U.S. military build-down or dealing with the future of Afghanistan. Over the long-term, however, they said things might turn out all right.

In a session convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, retired Air Force Gen. Ronald Fogleman acknowledged that the next few years might not be so pleasant for the U.S. and Afghanistan — “The outlook is not all that good,” he said. But he urged the audience to open its aperture.

Read more ....

My Comment: The best part of this article is the last paragraph ....

.... Still, Fogleman is right, as far as it goes: If the Afghanistan of the future is a place where girls can go to school without being scarred or murdered; where a majority of the adult population can read; and which can deny the use of its territory by terrorists who hate civilization — it will have been an improvement. Whether that outcome will have been worth the price is one we can’t yet answer.

What do you think?

In my opinion .... we should have left after Karzai was installed as the leader of Afghanistan in 2002. And no .... our presence since then has not been worth the cost.