Few subjects weigh more heavily upon a president than the decision to send our sons and daughters to war. Such a commitment demands the clearest of clear thinking, including a thoroughly dispassionate assessment of goals, risks, and strategies. This is difficult terrain for any American president, especially when faced with conflicting views from advisors, Congress, and the American public.
I have become deeply concerned that in the eight years since the September 11 attacks, the reason for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan has become lost, consumed in some broader scheme of nation-building which has clouded our purpose and obscured our reasoning.
General McChrystal, our current military commander in Afghanistan, has requested 30,000-40,000 additional American troops to bolster the more than 65,000 American troops already there. I am not clear as to his reasons and I have many, many questions. What does General McChrystal actually aim to achieve?
So I am compelled to ask: does it really, really take 100,000 U.S. troops to find Osama bin Laden? If al Qaeda has moved to Pakistan what will these troops in Afghanistan add to the effort to defeat al Qaeda? What is really meant by the term defeat in the parlance of conventional military aims when facing a shadowy global terrorist network? And, what of this number 100,000? Does the number of 100,000 troops include support personnel? Does it include government civilians? Does it include defense and security contractors? How many contractors are already there in Afghanistan? How much more will all this cost? How much in dollars; how much in terms of American blood? Will the international community step up to the plate and bear a greater share of the burden?
Some in Congress talk about limiting the number of additional troops until we surge to train more Afghan defense forces. That sounds a lot like fence straddling to me. I suggest that we might better refocus our efforts on al Qaeda and reduce U.S. participation in nation building in Afghanistan. Given the lack of popularity and integrity of the current Afghan government, what guarantee is there that additional Afghan troops and equipment will not produce an even larger and better-armed hostile force? There ain't no guarantee. The lengthy presence of foreign troops in a sovereign country almost always creates resentment and resistance among the native population.
I am relieved to hear President Obama acknowledge "mission creep" and I am pleased to hear the president express skepticism about sending more troops into Afghanistan unless needed to achieve our primary goal of disrupting al Qaeda. I remain concerned that Congress may yet succumb to military and international agendas. General Petraeus and General McChrystal both seem to have bought into the nation-building mission. By supporting a nationwide counterinsurgency and nation-building strategy, I believe they have certainly lost sight of America's primary strategic objective -- namely to disrupt and de-fang al Qaeda and protect the American people from future attack.
President Obama and the Congress must reassess and refocus on our original and most important objective -- namely emasculating a terrorist network that has proved its ability to inflict harm on the United States. If more troops are required to support an international mission in Afghanistan, then the international community should step up and provide the additional forces and funding. The United States is already supplying a disproportionate number of combat assets for that purpose.
Is this why he won the Nobel Prize?
To MAKE A PROVISIONAL AGREEMENT WITH TALIBAN in order to hit two targets with a single shot:
1) To get rid of current corrupt and hostile Afgan government.
2) We don't even need to reach any understanding with Taliban that they will scare the regime in Iran out of its wits.
The Afgan government has decided to follow Iran's bid. And when we don't call Iran's bluffs, everyone in the neighborhood gets emboldened and turns against us.
Troop build up will get the US nowhere.
Which, dear Senator Byrd, is exactly why this nation's founders, in their wisdom, INTENTIONALLY AND SPECIFICALLY vested that responsibility, duty and "decision" in the LEGISLATIVE Branch of government in which YOU serve, and pointedly NOT in the Executive Branch, contrary to what you clearly imply with that sentence. A deliberate SEPARATION OF POWERS instituted with sober foresight by men who knew their history, so that NO one man would - or could, absent the repelling of a sudden attack before Congress could act - ever need or be empowered to make such a momentous, weighty decision on his own say-so.
The President's Constitutional responsiblity is to EXECUTE the decisions CONGRESS makes about going to war and about the OBJECTIVES of that war as DEBATED AND VOTED IN PUBLIC, such that the constituents of our representatives have the ability to hold them accountable for their deployment of the lives and future wealth of OTHERS in violent campaigns of destruction abroad.
The fact that this long-serving, history-steeped Senator, of all Senators, ignores so blythely Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of our Constitution - in his opening sentence, no less - is an appalling and extremely ominous signpost along the way of our unspoken but determined and deliberate CONGRESS-LED inversion of our Constitutional Republic into a de facto, effectively unchecked, Presidential MONARCHY.
Words, and hope for America, fail...
Pakistan has a clear policy objective in Afghanistan -- a govenment that's not espcially friendly to India, as th Karzai narcotics-ocrasy is.
We will continue to bleed as long as Pakistan does not achieve this objective. Pakistan's major perceived threat is from India, and they are not going to abandon their insurgent allies. And there is no way we can force nuclear-armed Pakistan to do so.
Here's the deal: Pakistan, after it cleans out the rogue Taliban in Pakistan its currently fighting, provides us with Taliban elements it finances which guarantee to us that al Quaeda will not be allowed to operate from Afghanistan.
We sign a treaty with that government and leave.
The Bush Administration policies of neglect in Afghanistan makes it necessary for the Obama Administration to virtually start all over.
Had the Bush Administration done the right thing in Afghanistan we likely would be drawing down troops now rather than facing the necessity of a buildup.
Bring our troops home. There's a lot of work to do here in our own country. We need infrastructure built here & many Americans need jobs. Let's stop wasting time, money & lives in a country that doesn't even want us there.
I'm glad to see Senator Byrd back at his desk, and hopefully he'll be back in the chamber soon. He's one of the few senators who has had the good sense to oppose war. I hope President Obama will listen to him.
We were attacked by 19 guys who could suspiciously you would think, only afford one way tickets. We were not attacked by the Taliban or the Muslim world. Bush used the fact that the country was in shock, waved a flag and here we are eight years later. And? Osama he be free, and we are going broke chasing shadows.
Forget nation building, in Afghanistan?>>. Pleasse that is ridiculous. Obama did not create this mess. Bush did.Obama would not have been elected if he tried to get us out of two wars at once. The hawks needed something to chew on.Imagine McCain in power. Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran. Truth is stranger than fiction.