Someone with the credentials to know says it isn’t.

Rory Stewart, a man who probably can only be categorized as a “professional world citizen” wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times today about Afganistan. The title says it all, “The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting“.

Respectfully, yes it is.

Readers of this blog know me to be something of a flaming liberal. Certainly, I hated the war in VietNam and I hate the war in Iraq as worse than foolish and misguided. Nations from the ancient Greeks to the USSR have driven themselves into oblivion by foreign adventures motivated primarily by … well … stupidity. There’s no better word to describe what Bush has done to America by his bait-and-switch war in Iraq.

That doesn’t mean that there is no circumstance when a nation must resort to violent self defense. World War II is one that few would argue about.

Stewart uses excellent logic and deep understanding to justify his point of view. (Especially for someone as young as he is. He was born just as I was getting out of the Army near the end of the VietNam War.) But he’s got the background to justify it. He was born in Hong Kong, raised in Malaysia, Vietnam and Scotland and educated at some of the most prestigious schools in England. He’s served in the British Army and the British Foreign Service. He’s even been a tutor to the royal family. Brad Pitt bought the rights to his life story even though it’s only half over!

Basically, what he says is that we’re making things worse, not better, with our troop buildup in Afganistan; and that in any case, it’s just not worth it because we have much much bigger fish to fry.

All very good points and, actually, I agree with them. But there’s one point that he doesn’t even mention.

Bin-Laden killed 3,000 American citizens and he still hasn’t paid for that.

In my book, Bin-Laden’s crime rises to a level that makes it justifiable to go after him on those grounds alone. I agree with Stewart that Afganistan, by itself, just isn’t worth this level of commitment. Bin-Laden is.

One reason that Bush is both stupid and without honor is that he said he would go after Bin-Laden and lied. He mismanaged the war and diverted our resources to someplace entirely different.

If America is to reverse the tail-spin Bush has put us into, one of the first steps must be to start doing what we say again. Obama, like Bush, said he would get Bin-Laden. (So did McCain, but I don’t have any respect for McCain’s word.) We need to do it. I have confidence that Obama will.