Hitchens Rebuts Afghan War Critics

Christopher Hitchens published a well-argued rebuttal to critics of the Afghan War who have begun to lay the foundation for American withdrawal from Afghanistan. I won’t attempt to summarize Hitchens’ point because I highly recommend you read it for yourself but he brought up two important points.

First, we’ve given the Afghans our word that we wouldn’t abandon them to the Taliban and their particular version of Islamic Medievalism. Too many good Afghans have stood alongside NATO forces and taken their country back from these Islamist thugs for us to leave them before they are capable of defending themselves and burying the Taliban for good.

Second, the campaign in Afghanistan is part of larger war against Islamic Terrorism that will most likely lead to conflict with the Iranian dictatorship. For this reason, Afghanistan is an important training and staging ground.

Anyway, I recommend that everyone read Hitchens this week and compare his reasoned argument with Thomas Friedman’s adoption metaphor and decide which one is most compelling. My money is on Hitchens.