Fight to Win
There’s one major problem with the government having control over the military; they can play politics with war.
As much as I hail Bush for his understanding of how to stomp out terrorism, he grossly underestimated the number of troops needed to take down and then secure Iraq. And it wasn’t until 2006 that he finally ordered a surge of troops. He finally began to fight the war to win the war, and what do ya know, we’re winning that war.
Obama is in a similar situation. He’s faced with an increase of insurgents in Afghanistan. He has already announced that he’ll send 17,000 additional troops and today he announced an additional 4,000 trainers to train the Afghan army.
President Obama called for thousands of additional U.S. troops and billions of dollars in aid to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, declaring Friday that the U.S.-led effort must “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” Al Qaeda in the region…As part of the strategy, Obama said he was ordering 4,000 additional U.S. troops to help train Afghan security forces, and was calling on Congress to approve $1.5 billion a year in aid for Pakistan over the next five years.
Is Obama doing enough to stop the violence in Afghanistan? Hell if I know, but I know that the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, might know. When Obama announced his 17,000 troop increase McKiernan said with the increase in violence he would expect to see that troop level, about 55,000, for at least five years.
In December 2008 the Pentagon estimated that 25,000 more troops would be needed in Afghanistan, 8,000 more than Obama is sending (the 4,000 trainers don’t count).
Some say that we need a total 400,000 troops there. I certainly wouldn’t expect anywhere near that level, nor do I think that many are needed, my point is that the number that Obama came up with is several thousand troops lower than even the lowest estimates.
Obama also butts heads with McKiernan on strategy. McKiernan said in September that the strategy in Afghanistan wasn’t the problem, it was a lack of resources.
“Our strategy of approaching counterinsurgency operations is a valid strategy here,” McKiernan said. “Our problem is we don’t have enough resources to do it with.”
While the top commander in Afghanistan is saying don’t fiddle with strategy just give me more troops, what does Obama do? Gives him less troops than nearly every estimate recommends, and then says we need to change strategy.
US President Barack Obama has confirmed a fundamental rethink of US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to combat an “increasingly perilous” situation.
This is where I begin to think that Obama is playing politics with the war. Obama and Biden have both said that we are losing the war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile McKiernan has stressed that we are not losing and that we are facing a more emboldened insurgency, Obama and Biden’s comments feed right into that.
When it comes to war, politics should be put aside. Whether it’s going into war or creating a strategy for the war. Why would Obama give the Afghanistan commanders less troops than they asked for? Why would he say we need a strategy change when they say we don’t? Why would he say we’re losing the war when the commanders say we’re winning and the enemy is becoming emboldened?
Simple answer; the democrats don’t want to get their hands dirty with Afghanistan. They’re playing politics. They want to stick the “failure” of these wars on the republican brand for as long as they can. If Obama were to come out with a bold increase of troops and actually begin to fight the war to win the war, it’d be all on their backs, and they’re simply too scared to do that.
–jb
