My Opinion on Afghanistan

Today, one of the people I share an office with wanted to know what I thought of the President's speech last night and his decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. So, here's what I think (Note: I was out last night, so I didn't watch the speech).

A while back, I wrote that the President only had 2 choices. Well, apparently I was wrong...he picked choice #3...send more troops, but don't really try to win. I'm befuddled by this decision. He is sending less troops than the General on the ground requested, and he is telling Al Qaida and the Taliban when we are leaving? So, won't they just sit back and wait for us to leave? Also, won't the Afghan people be afraid to help us, for fear of retribution from the Taliban once we leave? Remember, according to Obama, we are leaving in July 2011.

In fairness to the President, representatives of the administration were backpeddling on that today, saying that date is only a goal. Either way, the President has made it clear that the US isn't in this for the long haul, and really isn't in this to win it...in my opinion. And, I'm not the only one who believes that...the NY Post says Obama is setting our troops up to fail.

I hope I'm wrong about all this. I hope this works out and we can bring our troops home as soon as possible. This is one time I'm actually rooting for Obama's strategy to work out.

But, I have to agree with the NY Post columnist on this one...why are we even sending more troops? It's clear to me that the President doesn't believe in the mission in Afghanistan, but he's playing politics in order to fulfill a campaign promise. You can't play politics with our troops...it's not fair to them or their families. If the Commander-in-Chief doesn't believe in the mission, he should just bring them all home, rather than fight a half-hearted war that will accomplish nothing more than putting our troops in harms way.