Growing distaste for war

The (Toledo) Blade: New polls suggest that Americans express a growing distaste for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. The sources of that discontent are numerous.

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is almost 10 years old. No one would reasonably argue that the United States should not have retaliated against Afghanistan after 9/11 to punish the then-Taliban government for hosting al-Qaeda. But it’s harder to say what the war has achieved since then.

The Afghan war costs the United States an estimated $2 billion a week. Many Americans look at the wrangling in Washington and statehouses over cuts in essential programs and services that could be mitigated by a peace dividend from winding up the war in Afghanistan. They ask: Why are we still there?

Al-Qaeda has largely been driven out of the country. The Afghan government and people, as well as the Taliban, understand the disadvantages of allowing al-Qaeda to return.

About 100,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan that is set to begin in July should proceed rapidly to bring an end to the war. The idea that the fighting could continue for years thereafter has little support in the United States.

Afghans and Americans are tired of the war.