What Will's Critics Can't Say
The Internets are alight with responses to George Will's column on the folly of persisting in Afghanistan. Yet nothing I've read to date has adequately addressed the core issue: how a supposed "victory" in Afghanistan does anything to al Qaeda.
It's a very simple question that the war's supporters can't seem to answer: what does a "victory" in Afghanistan do to the international jihadist movement? Does it stop the princes in the Persian Gulf from funding shady Islamic charities that pump money into jihadists groups? Does it stop European, or American-born citizens from deciding they want to blow themselves up? Does it impact the security of the al Qaeda leadership inside Pakistan? Does it prevent al Qaeda from establishing itself elsewhere - in Somalia, Sudan or Yemen?
If all of that would flow from rebuilding Afghanistan, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of more lives, that would be one thing. But can anyone plausibly make such a claim?
