[DoodleDawg]

To protect our interests and prevent the Taliban from taking back the country and setting up a sanctuary country for AQ.

And how are they supposed to do that in a country where the people do not support the corrupt government and you can't trust the local military and police enough to work with them?

[kabar]

The newly elected government of Afghanistan wants us to stay. We need a residual force that can support the government to stand up an effective military and have sufficient force protection to ensure that our people will be safe.

We have lost 39 US dead (13 non-hostile and 6 friendly fire)this year in Afghanistan plus 17 other coalition members. As terrible as the recent incident is, we need to place it in context. We should do what is in our best national interests. We have been working with the military and the local police. Green on blue attacks are unacceptable, but are they large enough for us to throw in towel? What is the threshold?

Our failure to negotiate a SOFA in Iraq has led to the current condition today. We now have about 400 advisers on the ground there trying to combat the spread of ISIL. If ISIL were to topple the government in Iraq, the impact on the entire region would be thrown into chaos. This will have an impact on oil production and the spread of militant Islamic fundamentalism. The global economy will suffer at a time when Europe and the US have still not recovered from the Great Recession and China is having its own economic problems including a real estate bubble. And Russia may be on the verge of invading Eastern Ukraine.

We can not take the head in the sand Obama approach to foreign policy. Obama has failed to lead and the vacuum will be filled by our enemies.