The President is expected the announce a troop increase as well as a plan for eventual withdraw from Afghanistan in a nationally televised speech at West Point today.
As pundits and politicians offer their credulously numbing opinions, I felt it was important to give a little more context to a conflict that has now lasted longer then the Revolutionary war, the Civil War, the first and second World Wars as well as both conflicts in Iraq. In fact, of the fifteen wars Americans have fought since the Revolution, only the Vietnam war has lasted longer.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I personally support the conflict in Afghanistan, as well as the expected troop increase. However, I can not support this country walking itself into another costly military quagmire.
As Republicans criticized Obama's deliberation over whether to increase troop levels for a second time since taking office, there seemed to be little acknowledgment of the scathing report released by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee criticizing the Bush Administration's decision to redirect attention away from Afghanistan in 2001 and towards Iraq:Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tora Bora Report
"Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force...
...the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan" (Yahoo)
The report cites declassified testimony and intelligence reports that confirm that Osama bin Laden was in fact hiding within the surrounded mountains of Tora Bora, and that repeated requests for troops- in some cases a mere few hundred Rangers- were denied by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. This represented not only a sweeping reversal of the Powell Doctrine, but a withdraw from the stated mission to capture bin Laden and crush al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Osama bin Laden himself was convinced of his own demise, even writing a last will and testament to his family affirming his militant convictions as well as apologizing to his children for dedicating his life to jihad.
Delta Force and CIA operatives have both publicly criticized Rumsfeld and then leading General Tommy Franks' decision to rely on Afghan troops for the assault who ultimately negotiated a cease-fire with al-Qaeda and turned their guns on CIA operatives when they attempted to engage bin Laden directly. So, when support was denied to Afghanistan and troops were drawn down, where was the outcry? Where was the criticism? How could the media fail to criticize the government's unwillingness to commit to their own goals?
Dick Cheney himself publicly championed Rumsfeld's decision, and continued to deny troop increases to Afghanistan for over seven years until President Obama finally increased troop numbers in March of this year.
The Afghan campaign up until that point had largely been a renowned success- the Taliban had been ousted and by 2002, interim President Hamid Karzai had been instated.
Just a few days after the fall of Kabul in November of 2001, Bush et. al. had already started directing Rumsfeld and Franks to draw up plans for an invasion of Iraq.
So rather then commit less then a thousand troops to finish the conflict in less the 2 months, we've instead been dragged through a 9-year, $300+ billion campaign with little to no ultimate progress to report of. As of the summer of 2009, new General Stanley McChrystal announced that the Taliban has now gained the upper hand and there's even talk of bringing the Taliban back into the political fold after initially expelling them in 2001.
It's interesting to me that Republicans are quick to cite government fallibility when it comes to criticizing government-run health care and yet are unwilling to acknowledge their own incompetence when it comes to their conduct in Afghanistan up to this point. By any accounts, the Afghan campaign was an utter failure. However, this has nothing to do with left or right and everything to do with how the entire country completely mishandled this war for 8 years. Democrats did absolutely nothing to fix or to criticize Rumsfeld's tactics until way after the damage had been done and it was "politically safe" to do so.
This brings me back to my initial statement of support for a troop increase. The fact of the matter is this is a mess that we've created and it's our responsibility to clean it up. According to a 2009 BBC poll, 63% of Afghan citizens support the U.S. military presence while 90% oppose the Taliban. By an 82-4% margin, Afghans also said they preferred the current government over the Taliban regime and a general majority feel that the U.S. presence will contribute to greater security, which along with poverty and unemployment, ranks as the highest concerns for the future of Afghanistan.
However, the Afghan government has been ranked as one of the most corrupt nations in the world, along with Iraq and Somalia. The Taliban has reemerged as a major influence in the country, and al-Qaeda continues to gain support in neighboring Pakistan. Without any western military presence, the country will most assuredly fall into greater disarray; there's little evidence yet that President Karzai's anti-corruption campaign will have a lasting effect, with over 50,000 additional troops needing to be trained.
Indeed, there is no way we can achieve any sense of stability in Afghanistan without a serious commitment of dollars and soldiers over the next few years, if not more. Yet, American and world interests are no different now then they were in 2001 when 88% of Americans supported the U.S.-lead invasion. It is only frustrating that it cost us nearly half a trillion dollars and almost a thousand American lives, as well as our reputation as bastions for human rights to make virtually zero progress. For that, let us not direct our anger at Obama for continuing the fight, but at those who chose to ignore the fight in lieu of other prospects.
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