Analyzing Obama’s New Afghan Approach
President Obama announced Tuesday night he is sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to neutralize al-Qaeda and provide stability in the region.
Photo by Pete Souza
Peace Action, the nation’s largest peace group, expressed disappointment.
“30,000 more troops in Afghanistan will fail to substantially increase security, to stop violent extremists and to make Americans safer. It’s time to transition from more military to investing in diplomacy, development and economic stimulus that creates long-term stability in the region,” Paul Kawika Martin, the group’s policy and political director, said in a statement.
Martin, who recently returned from a seven-day trip to Afghanistan, said bringing troops home in July 2011 is too long.
“Until the Karzai government realizes that foreign forces will leave, there is little impetus to engage in a comprehensive peace process with internal Afghan power holders like the Taliban and regional powers like Pakistan, India, Iran, and China,” he said. “It’s only such a process that will stop the decades of conflict that Afghans have suffered.”
Peace Action believes the cost of the escalation is too great, citing Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes claims that if you include interest on debt, veterans benefits, and other costs to society, then the total costs for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could top a staggering $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
“It would be far more economical and effective to invest in reducing Afghanistan’s 40 percent unemployment and 70 percent illiteracy rate and bring Afghans out of poverty — one of the root causes of violent extremism,” Martin said.
The White House said Tuesday it wants 30,000 extra U.S. troops to work with the other 68,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 non-ISAF troops already there to “target the insurgency, break its momentum, and better secure population centers.”
These forces will increase our capacity to train effective Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans get into the fight. And by pursuing these partnerships, we can transition to Afghan responsibility, and begin to reduce our combat troops in the summer of 2011. In short, these resources will allow us to make the final push that is necessary to train Afghans so that we can transfer responsibility.
From the White House – “Fact Sheet: The Way Forward in Afghanistan.”
The Center for American Progress argues that Congress, before approving additional funding, should require the Obama administration “to outline a clear set of objectives with accompanying metrics and an implementation strategy that does the following:
- Establishes a flexible timeframe for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
- Ensures that the mission is shared with our international allies.
- Presses Pakistan to battle extremists within its borders.
- Requires good governance and internal reforms in Afghanistan.
- Plans for how the war will be funded.”
Read more from CAP on what Congress should do and a comparison of CAP recommendations versus what the president said last night.