Brian Jones: “Monday I had the honor and the humbling experience of visiting Walter Reed Hospital. I met three young men that all…”

“Monday I had the honor and the humbling experience of visiting Walter Reed Hospital. I met three young men that all three have lost both legs above the knees. And actually, one of them I engaged about Afghanistan, and he, with his wife there with him, believes that we have done just about all we can do, and certainly he has done more than that: he has given his legs for this country. That leads me to wanting to read just a paragraph of an editorial by Eugene Robinson that was in the North Carolina papers, and the title of his column is ``Afghan Strategy: Lets Go.'' And I will read the last paragraph of his column: ``We wanted to depose the Taliban regime, and we did. We wanted to install a new government that answers to its constituents at the polls, and we did. We wanted to smash al Qaeda's infrastructure of training camps and safe havens, and we did. We wanted to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, and we did. Even so, say the hawks, we have to stay in Afghanistan because of the dangerous instability across the border in nuclear-armed Pakistan. But does anyone believe the war in Afghanistan has made Pakistan more stable?'' Mr. Robinson, you're right, it is not more stable because we are in Afghanistan. Perhaps it is useful to have a United States military presence in the region. This could be accomplished, however, with a lot fewer than 100,000 troops; and they would not be scattered across the Afghan countryside engaged in a dubious attempt at nation-building.…”