The Escalation

I watched President Obama's speech from West Point last night with skepticism, and I don't believe my opinion has changed at all. I believe that Afghanistan is a quagmire, and I do not think the escalation of 30,000 additional US troops is going to solve the problem for 3 main reasons:

First, the point of the war is to destroy Al Qaeda and its ability to use Afghanistan as a safe haven. However, many of Al Qaeda's forces -- supposedly including Osama bin Laden, himself -- are not located in Afghanistan, but rather Pakistan, a country whose territorial sovereignty we cannot breach. With the Pakistani government and military in the constant state of turmoil that it is, how can we expect them to secure their own land?

Second, the Afghans as a whole have no confidence in their central government. How can we be expected to stabilize a people and a government when the people don't have faith in the government?

Third, history. From December 1979 to February 1989, the people of Afghanistan were able to withstand the invasion of the Soviet Union. That's almost 10 years. We've been there just over 8. Do we really expect a different result? These people will wait us out. No matter how long we stay, they will wait longer. They will wait forever.

So, because I am extremely skeptical of our ability to accomplish this goal, I am also extremely skeptical that the withdrawal of US forces will be able to occur in 3 years. In a meeting with top members of Congress prior to last night's speech, President Obama was pressed by Senator McCain on the timetable he was laying out, and President Obama conceded that any troop movements would be based on conditions on the group. This mean if it comes time to start withdrawing and conditions aren't favorable, we won't. Rest assured that this war has no end in sight. President Obama may be telling us where the end is, but believe me when I say that neither he, nor the military, nor anyone else can actually see it.

When Osama bin Laden orchestrated the attacks on September 11, 2001, the goal was to bring the United States to its knees -- politically, financially, militarily. More than 8 years later, where are we? We are stretching our political clout throughout the world to the limit. We are hemorrhaging money that we don't have, sinking deeper and deeper into debt. And our military is under pressures that are pushing it steadily toward the breaking point.

I imagine he's feeling quite good about himself right about now.