by Chris Bodenner
Joe Klein spells it out:
The Pakistanis are absolutely convinced that if the U.S. leaves Afghanistan, India will jump in, supporting the non-Pashtun elements in the country.... Why is this a problem we should care about? Because India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. Because tensions between the two countries would escalate dramatically if we were to abandon the region. And, most important, because our departure would empower the more radical elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence services--not merely in their support of the Taliban, but also, potentially, in their ability to stage an Islamist coup d'etat. This is the worst scenario imaginable: a nuclear Pakistan, with allies of Osama Bin Laden controlling the trigger.
Greenwald pounces:
The U.S. government excels at finding brand new Urgent National Security Reasons to continue fighting wars once the original justifications fail or otherwise become inoperative: no more Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Still have to stay, otherwise India and Pakistan will fight. As part of his stenography services, Klein explained:
[S]ome of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President.
So there are deeply compelling reasons to escalate in Afghanistan. But they're secret. They "must go unspoken by the President." The American people have no right to know what the alleged purposes and objectives are of this war. They're supposed to fight in it (a tiny percentage, anyway) and pay for it with massive debt but they can't be told why it's really being fought.