Foreign Policy
America’s foreign policy must be prudent. While we should engage in international peacekeeping efforts in the future, we shouldn’t try to be “policeman of the world.” America should be kept strong militarily, but we must also realize that America’s power has its limits.
PHASED WITHDRAWAL IN AFGHANISTAN: I support a phased withdrawal of U.S. and Allied troops from Afghanistan, starting Jan. 1, 2010, and ending no later than Dec. 31, 2012. The Afghan people have suffered enough and the U.S. government should promote a negotiated settlement to the war.
Afghanistan has been at war almost continually since 1979, and American troops have battled in Afghanistan since 2001. By the end of 2012, Americans will have been in Afghanistan for 11 years. That’s more than long enough to achieve our mission. And 32 years of war is long enough for the Afghans. Afghanistan is an impoverished country. Sixty-eight percent of its population has never known peace. The country has experienced an almost continuous state of civil war, complicated by two foreign occupations, since the late 1970s.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. When the Soviets finally left, nine years later, a civil war broke out and the brutal Taliban took over. Then, after 9/11, a U.S.-led invasion sought to destroy al-Qaida training camps and we toppled the Taliban government.
We started out with fewer than 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2001, which gradually grew to the 68,000 troops at present. Now Gen. Stanley McChrystal is believed to be advising the president that 10,000 to 40,000 more troops are needed.
The purpose behind America’s incursion in Afghanistan was to destroy the groups that had planned the 9/11 attacks and permanently prevent their resurgence or regrouping. Today, however, with key U.S. officials resigning out of concern that America’s mere presence in Afghanistan is fueling the insurgency[1], and with America’s own defense secretary echoing these concerns[2], the time has come to reevaluate the strategic interest in continuing to fight in Afghanistan.
Our servicemen and women are dying and being injured in a conflict that appears to have no end. According to the National Priorities Project, our estimated total expenditures in Afghanistan stand at more than $230 billion, about $5 billion a month.[3] That’s money that could be better spent at home, instead of creating a new generation of impoverished, war torn Afghans.
As a person who grew up in the Vietnam era, I see our involvement in Afghanistan beginning to look a lot like the start of another Vietnam War. In Vietnam we started with 3,000 troops in 1961 and ended up with more than 500,000 in 1968, the peak year. There is legitimate concern that we may be entering another major conflict.
Should President Obama fail to be re-elected in 2012, do we want an Afghan war still going on, to possibly be continued and escalated by an unknown successor, as Lyndon Johnson did with Vietnam? Now is the time to start ending the Afghan war – while we still have the power and the will in Washington to do it. And if we pursue a phased withdrawal, we’ll be totally out of Afghanistan one month before the president is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2013 – no matter who that may be.
[1] Raddatz, Khan, and Parkinson, "Matthew Hoh, a Senior Civilian Official in Afghanistan, Resigns Over U.S. Strategy," ABC News, Oct. 27, 2009.
[2] Ackerman, "Gates: Afghans, Not Just U.S. Troops, Needed to Win War," The Washington Independent, Jan. 27, 2009.
[3] http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost_of_war_afghanistan
