The President moves on Afghanistan to quickly deploy 30,000 troops is backed up by three heavy goals.
By Frank Dutan
President Barack Obama’s plan to increase troop levels in Afghanistan is seen by many as a bold move in this his first year in office. At the United States Military Academy training facility at West Point, NY on Dec 1, 2009, in his address to the nation, the President outlined why he needed to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan within the first quarter of 2010. The plan, he said, is that the troop surge would ensure three main objectives: Al Qaeda would no longer find a safe haven in Afghanistan; reverse the momentum of the Taliban, who are a constant threat to the people of Afghanistan; and strengthen the security forces in Afghanistan.
As a justification for his decision regarding the situation in Afghanistan, “The status quo is not sustainable,” he announced, and said that he is “convinced that our [America’s] security is at stake in Afghanistan.”
In his description to the nation of the situation in Afghanistan as “the epicenter of violent extremism,” the President’s plan contained a hefty list of unexplained goals, which included the absence of a timescale and the accelerated number of troops, both of which mimic the conditions that existed with the invasion of Iraq.
On Mar 20, 2003 when former president George W. Bush announced the invasion of Iraq, two goals were made clear: to pull Saddam Hussein out of power and to uncover any weapons of mass destruction. Now President Obama wants to make sure the Taliban does not gain any more power and, as was given to Iraq, focus his attention on Afghanistan. With the passing years the numbers of troops deployed to Iraq have grown and with this announcement of an additional 30,000 troops, the overall numbers of American forces has resulted in a significant jump to 98,000.
This number is more than half of “160,000 in Iraq at the peak of the war” said the President in his speech. The President said he wanted to restrict the use of the nation’s armed services while taking into account the long term affects that a war can cause, such as a deterioration of the land, land that is in constant battle and villages that are nothing but rubble, as well as the cost in funding a war. The withdrawal of troops, he said, would commence in Jul 2011, which gives him two years to accomplish his three hefty objectives. Tony Capaccio, writing for Bloomberg L.P., reported on Dec 7 that with 68,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan, a deployment of 14,500 troops is scheduled to be in place by Jun 2010.
This bold move was arrived at after a thorough investigation of the situation in Afghanistan through consultations with the generals and commanders on the ground. The President wanted the deployment to be done at “the fastest possible pace - so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers” and wants to “bring this war to a successful conclusion.”
On Dec 2, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that in Dec 2010, exactly one year from the president’s announcement, there would be a review of the strategy and that the pace of withdrawal would depend on the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan
Despite the fact that the American economy isn’t what it should be, many Americans, by a slight margin, approved of Obama’s handling of Afghanistan. On Dec 3, the day after the President’s address, Gallup Inc., a national polling agency, took a poll of 1,005 adults over the phone asking about Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan, the amount of troops being deployed and the timetable set for this operation. Responses to the question about Obama’s handling of Afghanistan, 51 percent approved and 40 percent disapproved; on the question involving the number of troops being deployed, whether it was high or low, 38 percent believed it was about right, 36 percent felt it was too high, and 18 percent said the numbers were too low.
The poll also asked questions that dealt with setting a the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan: 46 percent said it was too soon; 26 percent said it should be sooner, signaling a shift to a desire to bring the troops home earlier; and 21 percent agreed with the surge. A recently conducted online Harrison Poll of 2,212 people showed that 53 percent were in favor as opposed to 26 percent against the troop surge.
While to some people the President’s decisions on Afghanistan could be considered questionable, the additional 30,000 troops are in the process of being deployed. On the other hand, many people have adopted a wait and see attitude, looking at if the strategies and operations are in America’s best interests and if the President’s decisions were sound.
