The New Republic Daily
Report
05/04/11
After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan Peter Bergen
The death of Osama bin Laden will raise the inevitable
question: What are we still doing in Afghanistan? The answer, of course, is that
the mission in Afghanistan is about something bigger and more ambitious than
eliminating Al Qaeda’s leaders—most of whom, in any event, are probably living
in Pakistan, as bin Laden was when the United States finally tracked him down.
No, the mission in Afghanistan isn’t about killing Al Qaeda members. It’s about
stabilizing the country so that it can never again serve as the hotbed of
extremism that it was until 2001, with all of the attendant national security
and human rights problems that resulted.
But that in turn raises other questions: Is it worth prolonging a war that has stretched on for nearly ten years for that broader goal? And perhaps the most difficult question of all: Even if that goal is worth fighting for, is it actually achievable?
Continue reading "After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan"
Why Can’t American Novelists Write Convincingly About Osama bin Laden and Terrorism? Ruth Franklin
We Came Close to Catching bin Laden in 2001. Sunday Night Ended Ten Years of Self-Doubt. Dalton Fury
05/04/11
After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan Peter Bergen
The death of Osama bin Laden will raise the inevitable
question: What are we still doing in Afghanistan? The answer, of course, is that
the mission in Afghanistan is about something bigger and more ambitious than
eliminating Al Qaeda’s leaders—most of whom, in any event, are probably living
in Pakistan, as bin Laden was when the United States finally tracked him down.
No, the mission in Afghanistan isn’t about killing Al Qaeda members. It’s about
stabilizing the country so that it can never again serve as the hotbed of
extremism that it was until 2001, with all of the attendant national security
and human rights problems that resulted.But that in turn raises other questions: Is it worth prolonging a war that has stretched on for nearly ten years for that broader goal? And perhaps the most difficult question of all: Even if that goal is worth fighting for, is it actually achievable?
Continue reading "After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan"
Why Can’t American Novelists Write Convincingly About Osama bin Laden and Terrorism? Ruth Franklin
We Came Close to Catching bin Laden in 2001. Sunday Night Ended Ten Years of Self-Doubt. Dalton Fury
