Obama Lays Out Afghan Strategy

     In the Austin American Statesman, there was a recent article about Obama’s Afghan strategy. The article stated that Obama would be sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan immediately and then planned to start withdrawing the forces in July of 2011.

     First there are a couple problems with Obama’s decision with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. During Obama’s campaign he pledged that he would end the war in Iraq, and get our men and woman back home to be with their families. Not only did that win major points with families of men and woman that were in the armed forces but also with Liberals who have never really agreed with the ‘invasion’ of Afghanistan and Iraq. It is making Obama seem that he is going back on his word, which is not a good way to end his first year in office. Aside my personal feelings about Obama as a president, which are the opposite of negative, during his campaign he should not of promised something that was going to be so hard to deliver on, since it is a tough decision to make.

     Aside from the final decision that he announced on Tuesday, I feel that exiting Iraq in July of 2011, will not go as planned. There was a statement that was made in the article ‘pace will be determined by the country’s security and political stability’. Afghanistan and Iraq had multiple problems before we sent our troops there, they still have had multiple problems throughout our 8 years of our troops being stationed there and they will continue to have problems when we withdraw. The bottom line; it is not our country to be worried about. Afghanistan and Iraq have been through so much destruction that I don’t believe they are ever going to reach political stability or security for that matter.

     According to the government it will cost an ‘estimated $30 billion for the first year alone’, I don’t understand why our government is wasting money and lives for a problem that the US is not responsible for. If the government is prepared to lay out $30 billion dollars to deploy more troops to Afghanistan than why can’t that money instead be used to start evacuations now and simply just ‘cut the cord’? It is not our responsibility to make sure a country such as Afghanistan, knows how to run and secure their country.
Another statement that was made by the Democrats was that Obama was starting an ‘expensive expansion of the conflict at a time of economic hardship at home’. Every word of that statement is true, regardless of your political stance. We our having extremely rough economic times here in the US and were are putting most of our time and energy into the war in Iraq when that focus should be here at home.

     The only other statement that I can agree with in this article is what Karl Eikenberry, US ambassador to Afghanistan, said which was he ‘opposed sending additional troops, arguing that doing so would increase Karzai’s dependence on the US military and prolong the country’s involvement in the war’. No one could say it clearer, the more troops and the more time and effort that the US puts into Afghanistan is just going to show Karzai that he will never have to worry about running his own country because the US will always be there the fix his mistakes, or lack of involvement. All there is to say is that the US needs to evacuate from Afghanistan and I believe that the evacuation needs to start immediately and not be prolonged until July of 2011, and I definitely feel that sending additional troops to Afghanistan is at the current time, the worst choice of action.