Statement on President Obama's Afghanistan Address

By Lois Herr

See full original statement at http://www.herr2010.com/issues01.htm

I am not surprised at President Obama's decision to send more troops; in the past he has referred to Afghanistan as the right war. But that was in the context of and in comparison to the Iraq War. I assume President Obama knows more than the rest of us and that he weighed his decision carefully. We must support him.

However, I would advocate a different perspective of our role and wish he would have chosen a different path.

Here's where I stand. The instability of the Afghanistan/Pakistan region provides an environment that allows terrorists to gain strength, strength they may use against us. Therefore, I agree there is a threat to our national security. However, deploying more troops in an effort to lessen that threat gives us no guarantee that we can in fact (a) stabilize the region or (b) find and neutralize terrorists. I believe a large US military presence works against both of these objectives.

Afghanistan has been historically and remains less a nation than a territory of insular tribes. Great powers over the centuries have found that Afghanistan cannot be united by outside intervention, and that many of its tribes will fight outsiders reflexively without respect to the purity of the outsiders' intents. This is not a characteristic we are likely to change.

Additionally, and worse, we have no national partner in Afghanistan. The Karzai government is rife with corruption and beholden to campaign promises made during a fraudulent election. It controls little territory and even less loyalty outside the capital.

The original drive into Afghanistan was to seek out Osama bin Laden and make sure the area was not a sanctuary for terrorists. He is still free and there are now many other places which provide sanctuary for terrorists. What we could not accomplish in eight years of fighting will not be done with the sacrifice of more lives on the same ground.