RE: Commentary on Sending More Troops to Afganistan

I also want to see an end to this war, and it would be great if that end was a peaceful one. However it seems that the Taliban are not ready to end the war and from my understanding that is a definate factor in why President Obama is sending in more troops. But doing so is making a big sacrife on behalf of our country. From an economic viewpoint this war has already left our economy struggling, additional war funding is only going to dig us deeper into an economic hole. Also there is the border issue. When we have illegal immigrants who come to the United States willing to work for practically nothing, citizens lose jobs. And there are already so many layoffs that we need as many job opportunities available for our citizens as we can get right now. The war is mostly to blame for this. We are spending too much money on a war that has in my belief lost its point. Its really not fair to send more troops oversees when we are not really sure what it is that we are fighting for anymore.

Before being elected president, Obama promised to get our country out of this war, but by the way things look we will still be in war by the end of his first administration.

You also mentioned that other countries should join the US in a war against the Taliban. However that would turn this war into a world war. I do not want to see it go that far. The Taliban is one group of people and to let that one group affect a numerous amount of countries seems ridiculous. I do agree that we need peace to be made but I dont see how continueing the war is making peace. Its just doing the same thing that we have been doing for the past decade. We need to try something new. I think that at this point the best thing for the United States is to pull out.

Commentary #2

In a speech delivered Tuesday night, President Barrack Obama announced that he has issued 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. The date of withdrawal of US troops from the Middle East has now been postponed to July 2011. However that is not a promise. As Columnist David Corn put it, “Obama has now made the Afghanistan war his own. This speech was just an opening shot in what will be a never-ending campaign to explain and justify a war that itself may be never-ending.” I agree with Mr. Corn; this war seems to be never ending and the longer we stay in it the more it is costing us. In the next year an estimated $30 billion will be spent to keep the war going. Why are we paying to go to war? We already have a sinking economy. How can our economy get better if we are shoveling out money to fight a war that most Americans do not want to be in? I understand that the withdrawal of troops is a slow process; anything to drastic could potentially be dangerous. But why are we sending more troops in? We have better security now, so shouldn’t we at least start the process of pulling out troops?


Apparently the 2011 “deadline” was set to appease Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai. It seems to be some sort of peace making strategy. What angers me is that the deadline is not officially set, meaning that the war could continue to drag on and in a year and half we may still be sending over more troops. According to a CNN/Research Poll 61% of Americans do not believe conditions in Afghanistan will be appropriate for troop withdrawal in 2011.


But if conditions in the Middle East have not improved by then will they ever? In my opinion the war is just a way of beating around the bush for our government. It is easier to keep the war going than to stop it. Withdrawing troops would be the first step in stopping the war and it seems unlikely that that will happen soon. We have yet to make a treaty; we still have no signs of peace. Maybe we have no way of ending the war right now but we need to figure something out. We need to get to the root of the problem and figure out a way to solve it otherwise this war really might go on forever.


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/02/obamas-afghanistan-speech-sending-more-troops-and-mixed-messag/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091203/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_karzai

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/04/obama-gets-support-for-afghan-plan-but-his-overall-approval-rat/