Afghanistan - Obama's War

On December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama spoke at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY to announce the increase of troops and commitment to the Afghanistan War. During this speech he spoke for nearly 35 minutes and not once mentioned the word -"Victory". Certainly a troublesome aspect in itself. Here you are as the President committing a large number of our armed forces to a combat mission and not being fully committed to the concept of walking away with victory. Our nations history has never marched to war without such a paramount principle. Sadly to say, as the camera panned the audience of our finest cadets, far to many found his delivery more conducive to sleeping than to a battle cry for victory.

I found the announcement of a timeline extremely inappropriate. Many of the troops will hardly be on the ground for twelve months before the "transitions" period begins. Much of the Presidents strategy hinges on the success of training the Afghan troop to assume control of the country when Americans leave. This was to a great degree the same policy of the Russians when in 1979 they were requested to come in and prop up a marxist regime fighting the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance. The Russians admittedly reflect to the difficulty of fighting in the mountainous terrain and realize today that important historic and ethnic factors were totally overlooked in their quest. Initially they were tasked to defend the southern borders with the Soviet Union but found themselves increasingly involved in tribal spats and eventually stood between two warring factions. After years of troop built up they finally called it quits and mourned the loss of more than 15,000 Soviet soldiers.

My logic tells me that these Muslim radicals have been fighting this war not just the ten years that Russia was involved and certainly more than the eight years we have already been there. This is a religious war that dates more than a thousand years back to the Crusades. This is about them against the infidels of the Christian and (more recently in history) the Western World.

Time means nothing to the Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They will hunker down for 18 months or as long as necessary knowing we will give up out of necessity. Loss of lives and nothing to show for the cost. If you want to throw in the fact that the government of Afghanistan is fundamentally corrupt, that will no doubt make the task even more daunting. I think this is a mistake and compounded by the lack of commitment for victory. We did it in Viet-Nam and in the end, a helo off a rooftop in disgrace.