Thoughts on Obama's Afghan Strategy

This morning the news networks are all reporting and analyzing President Obama's speech from last night on his strategy for Afghanistan and his decision to send more troops to that war. After listening to the speech and reading the text, a couple things struck me about his strategy and what appears to be his thoughts driving it.  

About a third of the way into his speech, President Obama made the statement  "... I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan."  In the very next sentence, he then says "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home". 

There are a couple things about these two statements that make me wonder just how committed President Obama is to this struggle.

• It took him more than three months to come to this conclusion after the general he had appointed to the war gave his report on what was needed to win this war. 
• He is sending only 3/4 of the number of troops (actually that number is half the 60,000 that was indicated as optimal) that his general said was needed to succeed. 
• What happened to our vital national interest after 18 months?  At that point is the effort in Afghanistan not so vital anymore? 

Are the compromises in troop levels and deployment duration based on politics, trying to walk a fine line between the anti-war far left and the general population that is more in favor of winning this war?  

I have a number of problems with setting a definite timeline for pulling out of Afghanistan, particularly one that appears to be much too brief. 

• Afghanistan is a tremendously difficult theater to wage a war. The area has been the target of invading armies for thousands of years and history shows that there is little success.  Could the US and its allies be successful in winning this conflict in spite of the terrain and weather?  I think so, but not with a tight timeline to fight as well. 

• The argument that the timeline imposes an incentive for the Afghan government to take responsibility for their own security is a straw argument. This part of the world is so fractured there is no real centralized government that could impose security and keep the Taliban and Al-Qaida out of the country - at least not within an 18 month time line.

• And like it or not, specifying a time frame just tells our enemies when we are leaving and how long they just have to hole up and wait us out.  Al-Qaida has shown they are perfectly happy to take the long view and not be in a hurry to strike any time soon if they can do so down the road with more effect. 

My big concern is that the United States is going to send an inadequate number of troops to Afghanistan and deploy them for an inadequate period of time. There will be casualties - people will be killed - and it will be for naught because this president does not have the will to win this war. Our troops will come home and Al-Qaida will strike America again - and then the whole process will start over again with more dead Americans and more troops asked to sacrifice. 

Mr. President - either fight this war to win, regardless of how long it takes, or get our troops out of there now and accept the consequences. Otherwise you are simply killing our troops without accomplishing anything. 

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....