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/
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I am in complete agreeance with how the author of this blog responded to Obama's postmonement of the withdrawl of our American soldiers from the Middle East soil. The role of the United States political system as the "World Police" has gone on for far too long. In other words, "you can lead a horse to water but, you can't make it drink." We can stay in this war for years on end, but our goal of making these foreigners accept the idea of peace and loving their neighbors is only something that can be done from their own will. This war's foundation is on revenge. That revenge has taken the form of teaching our opponent a life lesson. Sure, defeat on their behalf might put a dent in their terrorist attacks. However, it's the character behind these attacks that needs to change. Their reasoning for causing such travesty is what needs to change. Changing their way of reasoning is a difficult task which is most likely not achieved through a war. That kind of change takes root in culture, tradition, and familiarity. An outside force telling them "no, this way is right" is a strange idea and therefore, harder to accept. Withdrawl from this war is an absolute must. Sending more young women and men abroad to sign their life away for reasons that they may not even be aware of, is absurd. Also, a great level of hypocrisy on Obama's behalf should be considered. His platform for presidency was "change." He promisd a withdrawl from this war. Yet, his actions continue to prove that this promise to the his nation will go unfulfilled. How many other promises will we see go down this path as well? To conclude, a withdrawl from the war is a clear win. Great deals of money would be saved, lives would be spared, and promises would be fulfilled.
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