Endless War Wastes Money — And Lives

I have been trying to fathom Barack Obama. As a member of the Illinois Legislature, Sen. Obama declared against the war in Iraq. Now, as president, he not only begs to stay in Iraq, but increases our commitment in Afghanistan by tripling the number of troops. What puzzles me: What is our "commitment in Afghanistan?"
The only war we have won since World War II was in Afghanistan -- Charlie Wilson's war. Charlie and I had lunch together just before I left the Senate in 2005, and he allowed that we won that war against the Russians because Afghans "hated foreigners." He emphasized that the warlords in Afghanistan didn't trust each other, and the CIA had to pay them off to get anything done.

Now I have come across Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard," describing Eurasia, including the land mass of Russia and China. Brzezinski writes: "For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. ... Now a non-Eurasian power is pre-eminent in Eurasia -- and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained."

Thus, the U.S. policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Apparently, it's being implemented with President Obama promising missiles for Poland; establishing a naval base with South Korea on Jeju Island; and staying in Afghanistan.

The lesson of Vietnam was that you couldn't change a culture militarily. This is particularly true of Afghanistan, a narco state where they still sell their daughters and the warlords control.

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