Afghanistan -- now for a real debate

By advocating the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan by February '07, the NDP has finally created a real debate about our role in that sad country. There is certainly no shortage of evidence our participation in a counterinsurgency war is a mistake. It has been justified first, as part of the war on terror, and second, as a mission to bring democracy, freedom and other good things to the benighted Afghans.

The first objective is utterly misguided. You don't reduce the possibility of being attacked by Muslim extremists by sending troops into Muslim countries. Quite the contrary, in fact.

As to the second objective, this is a noble goal. However, noble intentions are useless, indeed dangerous, if they can't be fulfilled. The Americans had good intentions in Vietnam -- they were going to save that country from Godless Communism -- but they failed, and over 3,000,000 Vietnamese died. How many Afghans will pay the price of our hubris? The American military learned from Vietnam and articulated the lessons in the Powell Doctrine. The Bush government ignored the doctrine and waded into the Iraq quagmire. We appear to be following their lead in Afghanistan -- a Vietnam with poppies.

Whether you agree with the mission or not, it is richly deserving of a thorough, intense debate, and that's hard to achieve if all political parties are supporting the war. Now they aren't. Let the real debate begin.