Sending more troops to Afghanistan can be justified from many points of view... bringing the war to a swifter end, bolstering an unstable government, bringing the battle to al Qaeda, going after bin Laden – but there’s a little voice inside that keeps nagging at the outside edges of my being, saying, “Is this trip really necessary? Is it truly important that the U.S. be there? Are we actually in that much danger?”
Clearly, our President thinks so, deciding to send an additional 30,000 troops to that sad, war-weary country, with the proviso that we leave in a couple of years... and we all know how meticulously deadlines are followed. However, Obama, unlike his odd little predecessor, is not a war-monger, nor does he appear to be one who is easily fooled or led.
Therefore, the question occurs... if our President truly believes that it is imperative we continue this seemingly endless conflict, at great cost of both our families and our treasure... what does he know that we don’t know that makes him believe so?
Raising this question is necessary because we’re being asked to send our loved ones to die in yet another country that clearly doesn’t want us there, for reasons that are becoming less and less clear. It’s necessary because, simply stated, war is extremely expensive, and we could well use that money at home. And finally, it’s necessary because war is failure – failure of wisdom, failure of patience, failure of awareness, failure of spirit. It should be the last resort, and never the first response, of any nation – and certainly of a nation that views itself as a great one, and while self-defense can be understandable as a justification for retaliation, it's been rather a long time since our actions in Afghanistan seemed remotely like self-defense.
Obama said, during his campaign, that his administration would be open and forthcoming, to contrast the hysterically paranoid tone of the previous one. I believed him, and I still do. Nevertheless, many of us - tens of millions of us - are uneasy continuing this war, and so the question needs to be asked, before anyone else’s son or daughter comes home in a box, before another billion is spent, before our belief in what we stand for is eroded any further... What do you know that we don’t, Mr. President? Tell us what you know.
Because I’m not convinced we need to do this.
I couldn't agree more! I've heard this argument before of "just a few more troops and a little more time and we'll have this thing mopped up." Unfortunately, some people are still claiming that if the US had just spent another 6 months and a few thousand more troops in Vietnam we would've "won" that too! Just ask Russia what they think about Afganistan. They drove their tanks around there for (what, 8?) years and just ended up pushing their own country to the brink of poverty.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I have not heard any really good reason why we need to be there, except maybe that we've helped to break the country and now more troops will help to fix it? We don't even know for sure that bin Laden is still there. If it's terrorism we're worried about, there are better ways to stop it. I am completely unconvinced that we are doing ANYBODY any good there -- rather, I'm fairly sure we're doing great harm.
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