Radical Question #1: What is the largest problem with the American presence in Afghanistan?

[In this new series of blog posts, my purpose is to pose simple radical questions and submit some simple radical answers for consideration and debate. The word "radical" (from the Greek radix and the Latin radicalis) means "root level." I will address a range of questions within the realms of theology 101 and politics 101.]

Radical Question #1: What is the largest problem with the American presence in Afghanistan?

Answer: Afghanistan allows for no religious liberty.

First, when the United States set to track down Osama bin Laden after September 11, 2001, it should have simply sent in the Navy Seals to take him out, on national security grounds, and with no folly of consultation with a corrupt Afghanistan government. We were defending ourselves against a violent jihad that seeks to destroy our religious, political and economic liberty. 

Second, the United States should have simply built an advance military fortress in a strategic place in Afghanistan, with the ability from there to strike any terrorist activity discernible. 

Third, this would have precluded the folly of these eighteen years of trying to build a nation that cannot be built, and it would have saved countless lives and trillions of dollars. 

Fourth, the United States is rooted in religious liberty and Afghanistan forbids it. Nation building there cannot work.

Fifth, it is a cardinal folly for the United States to seek to arbitrate between different interpretations of Islam. This is not our role as a nation founded on religious liberty.

Sixth, the United States should withdraw all its armed forces and support staff from Afghanistan - except for a strategic fortress and air base for counter-terrorism purposes alone - and leave the competing interpretations of Islam to settle their own matters.

Seventh, only if the Afghanistan government were to allow and protect full religious liberty for all people equally, could there be any negotiation to change these terms, and only then can war be truly justified by the Afghanistan government against the Taliban.

And eighth, the United States is free - in its strategic fortress and airbase - to build an adjoining fortress and city for Afghanistan refugees et al. who want religious, political and economic liberty.