58 percent of respondents to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll say they oppose the Afghanistan war, and 56 percent oppose sending more troops – so does the Ambassador to Afghanistan:
The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai’s government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban’s rise, senior U.S. officials said.
What in the world are we thinking of? Get out now!
If President Obama took your advice to get out of Afghanistan, the country would return to its former Taliban governance. When this occurs, al Qaeda would simply return to a safe base where no one could harm them, exactly the way it was before September 11, 2001. It is thinking such as yours and President Bill Clinton who would neuter our nation’s armed forces and allow terrorists to strike once more in our country and kill countless innocent American citizens. If you read the U.S. ambassador’s message to Washington, you will read that he suggests holding off on bolstering troop levels until the Karzai government “tackles corruption.” Never once does he recommend pulling our troops out of the nation that would be too dangerous on its own. I sincerely hope you reevaluate your stance on the Afghan War.
Comment by Don — November 12th, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
Afghanistan is corrupt beyond redemption. We have no partner we can work with there. The arguments against raising our forces there are just temporizing. Everyone agrees our current force levels are ineffective – we are losing the war – if raising our force level doesn’t make sense – and it doesn’t- then keeping our current level of forces there makes no sense either.
Al Qaeda is a small band right now – with a safe base in Pakistan. All we are doing by staying in Afghanistan is keeping them in Pakistan, and giving inspiration to recruits to join them. We can’t keep sacrificing our blood and our treasure on a fruitless quest.
Comment by Jonathan Kantrowitz — November 12th, 2009 @ 3:30 pm