Intelligence Squared US

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010

AFGHANISTAN IS A LOST CAUSE

About This Debate

Has the surge in Afghanistan failed, and is it time for the U.S. to admit defeat and start pulling our troops out?

Nine years in, what have we accomplished in Afghanistan? Upon taking office in 2009, President Obama ordered an additional 17,000 troops in February and another 30,000 at year’s end in the hopes of staunching a rapidly deteriorating situation. Has the surge failed, or does it need time to take its course? Critics of the war are advocating everything from withdrawing our troops and concentrating on covert forces, to saving the north and abandoning the south to the Taliban. Only one thing is certain—there are no good options, but can the U.S. afford to abandon Afghanistan?

The Panel

For The Motion

  • Matthew Hoh
    Matthew Hoh
    FOR THE MOTION
    Matthew Hoh
    is a former State Department official who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over US strategic policy and goals in Afghanistan in September 2009. Prior to his assignment in Afghanistan, Matthew served in Iraq; first in 2004-2005 in Salah ad Din Province with a State Department reconstruction and governance team and then in 2006-2007 in Anbar Province as a Marine Corps company commander.
  • Nir Rosen
    Nir Rosen
    FOR THE MOTION
    Nir Rosen
    is the author of Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World, about civil war, sectarianism, occupation, resistance, terror and counterinsurgency from Iraq to Lebanon to Afghanistan. His first book, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq, was published in 2006. He has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Time, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, Boston Review and other publications. He has been reporting from Iraq since April of 2003 and has spent over four years on the ground there. He is a fellow at the New York University Center on Law and Security.

Against The Motion

  • Peter Bergen
    Peter Bergen
    AGAINST THE MOTION
    Peter Bergen
    is a print and television journalist; a senior fellow at the New America Foundation where he co-directs the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative; a research fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security and CNN's national security analyst. Bergen has reported for a range of newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. He is editor of the AfPak Channel, a joint publication of Foreign Policy magazine and the New America Foundation (www.foreignpolicy.com/afpak). His most recent book, The Osama bin Laden I Know(2006), was named one of the best non-fiction books of 2006 by the Washington Post.
  • Max Boot
    Max Boot
    AGAINST THE MOTION
    Max Boot
    is one of America’s leading military historians and foreign-policy analysts. The Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, he is also a contributing editor to the Weekly Standard and the Los Angeles Times, and a regular contributor to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and many other publications.

Moderator

John Donvan is an author and correspondent for ABC News. He has served as ABC’s White House Correspondent, along with postings in Moscow, London, Jerusalem and Amman. He is currently writing a book on the history of autism to be published by Crown in 2013.

Poll Results

Pre-Debate Poll Results
46% For | 23% Against | 31%

Post Debate Poll Results
51% For | 36% Against | 13%

Debate Media

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Point/Counterpoint

For

  • The counterinsurgency will never work because the U.S. has no credible partner—Karzai’s administration is corrupt, and after the 2009 election, Karzai himself is considered illegitimate.
  • The situation has gotten worse, not better. According to a UN report comparing the first four months of 2009 and 2010, roadside bomb attacks increased 94% and assassinations increased by 45%.
  • The majority of the American public no longer supports the war.
  • Afghanistan’s government and military are in no shape to take over.

Against

  • It is too soon to judge whether the surge is working—6 months after the additional troops were ordered, only half had arrived—and we are only just beginning to feel its full force.
  • Part of the problem has been the perception that President Obama will pull out in 2011, but he has made clear his flexibility and commitment to the war effort.
  • The situation on the ground has been exaggerated and real improvements can be seen in Marjah, the surge’s first area of focus.
  • It is a difficult road ahead, but the U.S. cannot afford to allow the further spread of the Taliban and the reentry of Al Qaeda.