Afghanistan Policy

It looks like Obama is going to announce his long-awaited decision on his Afghanistan policy, and if rumors are correct, he'll be sending something approaching the 40,000 troops McCrystal has requested. I think this is a huge mistake. I can't see how Afghanistan is anything approaching an existential threat to the US, and I can't see any way to justify the costs of an open-ended campaign to pacify the country. Going back to the time of Alexander the Great, no country or empire has been able to control Afghanistan. What makes the USA so special?

If you want to see and hear someone far more articulate than me give his strategy for the area, watch this video of Andrew Bacevich and David Frum debating Afghan policy. Andrew Bacevich is a very thoughtful and intellectual conservative and author of the book, Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. David Frum is the former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase, "axis of evil." Canadian readers might know that he is the son of the CBC broadcasting icon Barbara Frum. David Frum is not a whacko conservative, and he styles himself as an intellectual conservative, but I think he was out of his league in this debate with Bacevich.