Assuming President-elect Obama follows through on one of the central promises of his campaign, the United States will soon begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. This is mainly because he feels that we failed to secure Afghanistan before invading Iraq.The extension of this argument, which pits the Iraq War against the war in Afghanistan, generally frames Iraq as a war of choice and Afghanistan as a war of necessity. Therefore, it is important that we finish the job in Afghanistan by leaving a peaceful and prosperous nation that embraces democracy and religious freedom, guarantees equality before the law and serves as an ally in the War on Terror. Also, success in Afghanistan is needed to legitimize NATO as a force with a mission outside Europe, because this is the organization’s first out-of-area mission.However, I would not be surprised if there are calls for a withdrawal from Afghanistan in a couple of years. Somehow, I doubt that most Americans are committed to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan any more than they are committed to a peaceful and prosperous Iraq. I do not think this is necessarily true of Barack Obama, but I do think it is true of the American public, whose support he will need to maintain a long-term commitment to a counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operation that has been going badly for a while.In a few years, people will be asking themselves what the War in Afghanistan is doing for them, and I suspect they will be hard-pressed to find an answer. There may very well be answers available: The strategic importance of the geography, the negative consequences that could result from a failed state between Pakistan and Iran, and the importance a fight against extremist terrorist groups dedicated to killing our citizens are a few that come to mind. But these reasons will all seem like rhetorical superfluities meant to encourage commitment to a war that is costing American lives and money when both are wanted at home.There are, after all, plenty of good reasons to remain in Iraq, but the American people are not buying them anymore. Those reasons have come to sound like empty rhetoric.Afghanistan is a mess. Though the country supposedly has free and fair elections, only one major candidate, Hamid Karzai, is capable of campaigning throughout the country without being killed, thanks to his heavy American security detail. Other candidates will likely be killed if they venture outside areas friendly to members of their tribe. The consequence is that one candidate is able to totally dominate the national scene.In the United States, we do this with money and media advertisements. That is controversial. In Afghanistan, however, Karzai’s way of dominating the political discussion is by being the only candidate with freedom of movement. The injustice of that situation should not be controversial at all.Even worse, opium production in Afghanistan is booming. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan produced a staggering 8,200 tons of opium in 2007 (34 percent more than in 2006). The country is the almost exclusive supplier of arguably the world’s deadliest drugs; it is the source of 93 percent of the global opiates market. The price of a kilogram of heroin at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has dropped to $200 from $400 since Sept. 11, 2001. The street price of heroin has fallen as well, though not by 50 percent in most places. Criminal networks are benefiting the most from this production increase after a period of high street prices. Traffickers are making huge profits.The fact that drugs and extremist terrorist groups play such a major role in Afghanistan is probably enough to ensure that the United States will remain active there in some capacity for quite some time. However, I don’t expect us to keep a large number of American troops there to ensure women enjoy civil rights and that disagreements are resolved by lawyers rather than gunmen.Some Americans think our military does more harm than good and that peace is simply the absence of violence and not necessarily the presence of justice. Others feel we should mind our own business and not sacrifice American lives for people in distant countries. Most are simply not impassioned by wars with which they have little or no connection.I understand and accept that. I know people have families, jobs, houses, savings and debts to worry about. But we should consider these things before we commit troops again. Bringing troops home from war before they complete the mission they have been given is one of the most decadent aspects of our national character. Only the most self-indulgent of nations may enter and leave wars as their whims dictate, without worry for their survival or concern for the survival of those they once promised to liberate from oppression.William Quinn is a junior in the School of Foreign Service and a former staff sergeant in the United States Army. He can be reached at quinnthehoya.com. AIMLESS FEET appears every other Tuesday.”