Memorial Day

In my town, there's usually a very moving ceremony at a Memorial in a public park by a lake. Last year, there was a WWII veteran, a Vietnam-era veteran, and a recent graduate of Eden Prairie High School who returned, badly wounded from Iraq. Having had some dinner guests who had recently been in Central Asia, as we discussed events in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I realized that I could not describe the mission of our troops in the Central Asian theater in a simple sentence.

We've heard endless discussions about tactics like the surge, and we've had photo ops with President Karzai at the White House. But, what is our mission and when do we know that we've acccomplished it? Let's take a stab at guessing: 1. Prop up the Karzai government; 2. Drive out the Taliban and eliminate their leadership; 3. Replace poppy as a cash crop; 4. Change the hearts and minds of the Afghan people; 5. Establish democracy and free markets?

Look at the BP disaster in the Gulf. The short-term mission is to stop the flow of oil, and multiple solutions are being thrown at it, some simultaneously; the company has partners, including its industry peers and government experts, working on ideas with them. Failure isn't an option, and containment of the damage is also proceeding. We know that if the mission succeeds, the aftermath and the digging out will be long and costly. But, we all know what we're after: shut off the oil.

Here are my thoughts on the guesses for what we're trying to do in Central Asia: 1. Not worth it; 2. Not possible; 3. Economics will drive this, not our politics; 4. We may be inadvertently changing it the wrong way; 5. These modern concepts are foreign to them.

As valleys in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been won at great cost and are strategically ceded back, and as our troops continue to work and die under intensely difficult and traumatic conditions, let's be grateful for their commitment and pray for their safety. They are doing good work, along with private citizens and relief agencies.

But, let's demand of our political leaders an answer to the question that Country Joe McDonald asked many years ago, "It's 1-2-3-4, what are we fighting for?"