Afghanistan wave 4
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AT: Withdraw disadA counterterrorism approach preserves U.S. credibility Rachman, 10 (Gideon, Financial Times, “Somali lessons for Afghanistan”, 7/26, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1e1b3764-98b1-11df-a0b7-00144feab49a.html) The lesson of Somalia and Pakistan is that counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency are different things. It is possible to combat terrorist groups without getting sucked into a major war and state-building exercise of the sort that the west has committed itself to in Afghanistan. That, in turn, suggests that Nato should look to withdraw troops from Afghanistan much faster than currently envisaged – and to refocus the mission much more tightly on counter-terrorism. There are good and bad arguments that will be deployed against this course of action. The best argument is that, having committed to building a decent state in Afghanistan, the west has a moral obligation to keep going. It is true that there are many brave and decent Afghans who have put a lot of faith in the Nato-led war. But it is surely now apparent that the protection of human rights in Afghanistan cannot ultimately be secured at the point of a foreign gun. Only the internal evolution of Afghan society can provide any long-term guarantees of good government. The other main argument against pulling back from Afghanistan is that western credibility is at stake. If we fail in Afghanistan, Nato might fall apart and America’s enemies across the world will be emboldened. Picture the fall of Saigon in 1975 – now replay that event, with the Taliban entering Kabul. But this argument is also over-stated. A seriously reduced foreign force could help the Afghan government maintain control of Kabul – much as the African Union force has, so far, kept the Islamists from seizing Mogadishu. Even the fall of Saigon was not the catastrophic blow to the US that it felt like, at the time. Just 16 years later, the Soviet Union collapsed – helped on its way by a draining war in Afghanistan. The credibility argument is an empirically false scare tactic Bonner, 10 - a former foreign correspondent and investigative reporter for the New York Times, (Raymond, The Altantic, “On Afghanistan, Asking the Wrong Question,” 7/30, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/07/on-afghanistan-asking-the-wrong-question/60646/ It was a compelling argument, made at a conference in London co-sponsored by The New York Review of Books and The Guardian. But there was something disquieting about it. First, is it in America's interest, or its duty or obligation, to prevent a civil war in Afghanistan? Second, isn't it Foreign Policy 101 that a country decide whether or not it has security interests before making a decision about going to war? Third, during Vietnam, when all was going from bad to worse, over and over, we were told that America's "credibility" was at stake. We eventually withdrew, most ignominiously, and Vietnam became Communist. If America's credibility suffered, it wasn't for long: when Europe was troubled by the turmoil in its own Balkans neighborhood, it begged the United States to come to the rescue. No one questions that America is the most powerful nation in the world, with the most credible military. AT: Withdraw disadThe credibility argument is empirically false Englehardt, 10 - Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley and Fellow at the Nation Institute (Tom, “Yes, We Could... Get Out!”, 4/26, Antiwar.com, lexis) It's worth remembering that, in 1975, when the South Vietnamese Army collapsed and we essentially fled the country, we abandoned staggering amounts of equipment there. Helicopters were pushed over the sides of aircraft carriers to make space; barrels of money were burned at the U.S. embassy in Saigon; military bases as large as anything we've built in Iraq or Afghanistan fell into North Vietnamese hands; and South Vietnamese allies were deserted in the panic of the moment. Nonetheless, when there was no choice, we got out. Not elegantly, not nicely, not thoughtfully, not helpfully, but out. Keep in mind that, then too, disaster was predicted for the planet, should we withdraw precipitously ?" including rolling communist takeovers of country after country, the loss of "credibility" for the American superpower, and a murderous bloodbath in Vietnam itself. All were not only predicted by Washington's Cassandras, but endlessly cited in the war years as reasons not to leave. And yet here was the shock that somehow never registered among all the so-called lessons of Vietnam: nothing of that sort happened afterward. Today, Vietnam is a reasonably prosperous land with friendly relations with its former enemy, the United States. After Vietnam, no other "dominos" fell and there was no bloodbath in that country. Of course, it could have been different ?" and elsewhere, sometimes, it has been. But even when local skies darken, the world doesn't end. And here's the truth of the matter: the world won't end, not in Iraq, not in Afghanistan, not in the United States, if we end our wars and withdraw. The sky won't fall, even if the U.S. gets out reasonably quickly, even if subsequently blood is spilled and things don't go well in either country. Plan popular in CongressWithdrawal popular – Congressional opposition is escalating now Sanger, 7/21/10 (David, New York Times, “Afghan Deadline is Cutting Two ways,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/world/asia/22assess.html?_r=3&hp) Mr. Obama has begun losing critical political figures and strategists who are increasingly vocal in arguing that the benefits of continuing on the current course for at least another year, and probably longer, are greatly outweighed by the escalating price. For two months, Democrats in Congress have been holding up billions of dollars in additional financing for the war, longer than they ever delayed similar requests from President George W. Bush. Most Republican leaders have largely backed a continued commitment, but the White House was surprised the other day when one of Mr. Obama’s mentors on foreign policy issues in the Senate,Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, argued that “the lack of clarity in Afghanistan does not end with the president’s timetable,” and that both the military and civilian missions were “proceeding without a clear definition of success.” “We could make progress for decades on security, on employment, good governance, women’s rights,” he said, without ever reaching “a satisfying conclusion.”
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