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White House says withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an option

October 5, 2009

  When General McChrystal proclaimed that more troops were needed in Afghanistan or the mission would fail President Obama was left with three options; give the general the troops needed to secure victory, ignore the general and continue to fight with the current troop levels, or withdraw from Afghanistan.

  I support giving General McChrystal the troops that he needs to win this war, but if Obama is not willing to commit more troops than I find it more acceptable to withdraw from Afghanistan than I do to fight a war that the commanding general admits is not winnable under the current circumstances.

  Today the White House has stated that withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an option. This means that the president is now faced with two options; giving the general the troops needed to secure victory, or continue to fight a war under the conditions that the commanding general admitted will fail. Now that Obama has seemingly made the decision to stay in Afghanistan, a decision that I agree with, I can only hope that he will provide General  McChrystal with the troops that he needs to win this war.

  We have attempted to fight this politically correct type of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wasn’t until President Bush finally decided to send the troops necessary to win the Iraq war that we finally were able to secure the victory that is now leading to the draw down of troops in Iraq. This should prove to be a teachable moment to President Obama. Now that we are going to stay in Afghanistan it is time to send in the needed troops and secure a victory.

3 Comments leave one →
  1. LD Jackson's avatar
    LD Jackson permalink
    October 6, 2009 7:59 pm

    I totally agree. If we are going to stay in this war, then it is unfair to our troops to do anything else but give them what they need to win. Anything less is criminal.

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    • Steve Dennis's avatar
      October 7, 2009 5:01 am

      Exactly! If we stay we need to commit whatever it takes to win, to do otherwise is sacrificing lives for a lost cause.

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  2. Mustang's avatar
    October 7, 2009 8:37 pm

    The American People won’t support what will be necessary to win in Afghanistan no matter how many troops we send in now. A winning solution is a very long term and costly war. Americans are too used to instant gratification, they want it now, and they are not willing to pay for it over a long period of time.

    We couldn’t win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese or the Iraqi’s (prediction). We won’t win the hearts and minds of the Afghans because culturally, they don’t want and can’t live with our governmental and socio-economic models.

    I say, turn it over to the CIA and 2000 drones, and don’t worry about collateral damage.

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