Accelerate Afghanistan war exit

American combat troops are scheduled to return in entirety from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but that is becoming a timetable that stretches too far.

In the nearly 11 years in the country where the 9/11 attacks were engineered, the U.S. military has reached 2,000 dead, half of whom were killed in the past 27 months resulting from President Barack Obama’s justified surge of 33,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2010.

Increasingly, too many of American deaths have come from Afghan security forces, those who have been our allies. At least 40 NATO service members, mostly Americans, have been killed by either active members of Afghan forces or attackers dressed in their uniforms. Their families are right to ask that American troops be better protected from their own allies.

About 2,600 soldiers with the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade based in Schofield Barracks are in southern Afghanistan on a year-long deployment that began in January. Tragically, four Black Hawk crew members from Schofield and three Navy sailors lost their lives this month in a helicopter crash in the area.

Since 2003, more than 300 servicepeople with Hawaii ties have died or been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American troops were ordered in the wrong direction into Iraq following the 2001 attacks on the United States, but soon after assuming the presidency in 2009, Obama turned them in the right direction to Afghanistan. This increased effort in and about Afghan- istan was topped by the killing of Osama bin Laden.

However, Afghanistan has remained mired in widespread corruption and violence, leaving U.S. troops to fear that the allies next to them comprise a frightening threat via "insider" or green-on-blue attacks, as they are called. U.S. and NATO soldiers are required to carry their weapons at all times in order to react quickly to such attacks. Improvised explosive devices — IEDs — along with small-arms fire, remain leading causes of death and injury.

After talking with Afghan leaders, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he had found Afghan leaders only recently as "concerned about the insider attacks as we are." It’s time for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and his military leaders to make strong efforts to reduce the attacks. Obama has conceded that such an Afghan response is needed to protect American forces.

Afghanistan is now considered America’s longest war, at 128 months. While Obama rightly ordered the surge, the present circumstances give reason for an accelerated completion of the effort, while fulfilling the promise to provide trainers, advisers and air power to help track down al-Qaeda militants.