The long haul
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 | Uncategorized
Just two days ago, Obama delivered his long-overdue platform on Afghanistan. And, in a move that is entirely unsurprising, he has recommitted his country and his military to the longest-running war in American history.
The gist of his speech: 30,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan to establish order and train Afghani security forces to maintain that order. Due date: July, 2011.
Okay, not bad, Mr. Obama. That’s a solid plan. I’m anti-war, but I’m certainly pro-solving-the-problems-you-created. This is no modern day Roman Empire venture to conquer the world one territory at a time - it’s just helping to fix the enormous problems created in an already-devastated country. Fine. I’m fine with that.
What I’m not fine with is the implications of this platform. There’s already 13,000 troops over there - do they come home in 2011? In fact, senior Cabinet members of Obama’s administration have already been promoting this war as anything but a cut and run effort, ensuring lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there will be an American presence in Afghanistan for decades. Hilary Clinton even suggests in that article that Afghanistan and Pakistan could have American forces in them for 50-60 years!
Again, I get it - the surge is just to get this plane off the ground, to gather enough momentum to get Afghanistan on its own two feet. But once that happens, why not pull ALL your troops out? I’m not so naive to suggest that I am a greater military strategist that these men and women that have orchestrated this venture. In fact, I’m clueless on the whole thing. But it seems to me that Obama has no intention of ending this war before his term is up, and maybe no intention of ending this war before the middle of the damn century.
Afghanistan will never do anything on its own so long as the U.S. still has one hand ever present on the back of the bicycle.