Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Doubling Down in Afghanistan

Why We Refuse to Fold a Losing Hand

By William J. Astore

As Congress moves toward rubber-stamping yet another “emergency” supplemental bill that includes more than $33 billion for military operations, mainly to fund the latest surge in Afghanistan, maybe we should take a page from the new British government.  Facing debilitating deficits, the conservative Tories and their Liberal Democrat partners are proposing painful cuts to governmental budgets, including military operations in Afghanistan.  As the Independent put it, quoting a senior military source, “Essentially, the Americans know we are broke and we are getting blokes killed for no good reason. Whatever the [British Ministry of Defence] says, it absolutely isn’t business as usual.”  In other words, an overstretched government, low on chips and recognizing a losing hand in Afghanistan, is finally moving to cut its losses, perhaps even to walk away from the table.

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