Letter: Strategy change in Afghanistan is delusional

When the current administration completes its term in 2020, we will have been fighting our misbegotten war in Afghanistan for 20 years. Now, after 16 years, $1 trillion spent, more than 4,000 American military and contractor deaths and more than 20,000 military wounded, we are losing. So says Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

We have already destroyed much of the country, funded one of the most corrupt governments in the world, destroyed the country’s economy, displaced 600,000 Afghans and killed more than 30,000 civilians, many of them children.

I can think of no more effective way to arouse hatred than by killing people’s children.

Congress is calling for a new strategy to defeat “the enemy” — Afghans who are fighting to drive a foreign invader from their country. U.S. Central Command head Gen. Joseph Votel didn’t explain how a few thousand more soldiers could change the direction of the war when 100,000 didn’t in the past.

After 11 years of military involvement in Vietnam, we had the common sense to cut our losses. Expecting that, in another four years, we will win the war in Afghanistan by some change of strategy is delusional.

This story was originally published July 3, 2017 at 2:45 PM with the headline "Letter: Strategy change in Afghanistan is delusional."