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A lost cause

President Barack Obama, under the guidance of U.S. Central Command boss Gen. David Petraeus, plans to send thousands additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

This buildup promises renewed sacrifice for military members and their families — and Afghanistan, often dubbed the graveyard of empires, is simply not worth it.

Unless there’s an immediate threat to the U.S., it’s time for the thousands of exhausted servicemen and women to come home. Only small contingents of mostly special operations forces should be left behind.

Afghanistan was once the “just war.” We initiated combat Oct. 7, 2001, to take down al-Qaida training camps and to disrupt the al-Qaida leadership that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.

We succeeded — for the most part. Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders escaped to Pakistan, but U.S. forces neutralized Afghanistan as a training base. The American people responded to the effort with widespread support.

Now, everything looks different.

The ally we created, the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul, is unpopular — at best, inept, and at worst, corrupt. The country’s opium trade is thriving, and the Taliban, the fundamentalist Islamic militia, increasingly control rural areas.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters suggested the right U.S. course in Afghanistan in a column published Feb. 24 in USA Today.

Peters wrote: “Instead of increasing the U.S. military ‘footprint,’ [we should] reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a ‘mother ship’ at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.”

Peters urged the U.S. to “stop pretending Afghanistan [is] a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium.”

No one in Afghanistan ever possessed the means to destroy the U.S. At least half a dozen nation-states can destroy us. We’re not ready to fight them.

Drawing down in Afghanistan isn’t a perfect solution. But face it: We’ve done all we can there.

We need to rest, reset, reboot and rebuild our armed forces. We don’t want a real threat to catch us overstretched, tired and unprepared.