U.S. Official Resigns as We Wait on Obama's Decision on the Afghan War

Bill Smith, Editor: The Washington Post reports that Foreign Service Officer Matthew Hoh who is a former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting in Afghanistan. Hoh has combat experience in Iraq, was stationed previously at the Pentagon, and has since been a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department.

The Post identified "[That] last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency. 'I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan,' he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. 'I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.'"

The Post article also identified the efforts by senior officials, including U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, to convince Matthew Hoh to stay on advising on Afghanistan. However, in the end, Hough resigned:

"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.

"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."

But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.- backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.

The concerns expressed by Hoh shine light on the topic that has remained in the shadows -- why did neither the Soviets (Russians) nor the British win in Afghanistan. Even a desk jockey blogger knows from National Geographic and prior media specials that this rugged nation is made up of people who do not trust outsiders even if those outsiders believe they are there to help. Hoh's positions also highlights General Stanley McChrystal’s points and the decision as yet to be made by President Obama in response to the General's request.

The Afghans are fighting us and our allies because we are outsiders; the Afghans do not trust outsiders even if they are Afghans from a village in another Mountain valley. Anyone who has spent time in Appalachia or the Ozarks can appreciate this situation.  The result: in Afghanistan our troops are reduced to fighting them because obviously they are fighting us. After eight years, shouldn't we have located the terrorists? How much does it take to buy information from a people in a poor nation? Our real enemies seem to have understood this dynamics when they choose to hide in Afghanistan.

The present situation is not the military's fault - they were ordered to go and they went. The present situation was and is the fault of bureaucrats and leaders who failed to consider both the culture and geography of a region and to both plan and act accordingly. Regardless of the past, we now are waiting for President Obama, who is unskilled in the art of war, to make a decision about General McChrystal's request for troop deployments and military support in Afghanistan.  Dear Lord, help us and our faithful warriors who serve in harms way!

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