Afghan Debate Continues

The past week we have witnessed the deaths of close to twenty U.S. military personnel serving in Afghanistan and in Washington the president still has not indicated if he will support the troop request given to him by General McChrystal.

Pundits on both sides are actively engaged in vigorous debate on what the Strategy should be in Afghanistan. We all know that President Bush never really sourced the conflict in Afghanistan with enough forces or resources, but that still doesn’t relieve the current administration regarding the situation in Afghanistan. The president’s surrogates consistently blame the Bush Administration for the current situation when in fact in March President Obama laid out a new strategy in Afghanistan when he dispatched additional troops.

The administration in May fired General David McKiernan and replaced him with General Stanley McChrystal as the new ground commander in Afghanistan. On August 29th General McChrystal submitted to the Secretary of Defense his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan after extensive review by many in uniform and among different policy think tanks that cut across the political spectrum.

In September General McChrystal submitted to the Secretary of Defense and to President Obama his recommendation that he would need an additional 40,000 troops to institute a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, if not then the United States would eventually lose the conflict.

These is where the debate stands will the president give General Mchrystal the additional resources, or employ a counter terrorism approach advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden, or listen to his Democratic base with a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, or something in between.

The president needs to be more forceful on what he plans as the debate is out of control and consistently being discussed in the public arena as it makes the president look indecisive. Everyone has an opinion on the subject and to those in the military the ones to implement that policy they feel he is listening to his political advisors and side stepping the military.

Right now the president consistently blames President Bush, but back in March he instituted his own strategy placed his own general to implement that strategy now complains that we had no strategy. This indecision makes the president look week to our adversaries and to our allies as they will not commit more forces until they know what we will do.

Recent statements by the White House have a decision coming either before or after the November 7th runoff election in Afghanistan, but I am not holding my breath. It seems he is looking for some excuse to justify not sending the resources advocated by his general in Afghanistan.