A Dilemma

Seven years ago, then-Vice President Dick Cheney boldly declared that "The Taliban is out of business, permanently [in Afghanistan]." Seven years later we stand just days away from an announcement by President Obama as to whether or not troops need to be deployed in greater numbers to Afghanistan. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces in the Afghan theatre has requested as many as 40,000 additional troops to be sent to the region to help quell the resurging acts of violence being undertaken by Taliban loyalists. Now where the dilemma comes in is whether Obama goes against what he ran for in the campaign for his Presidency (bringing our troops home) or sticking to his decision and withdrawing our troops from the region. In all honesty though, it was a decision that was made even before he ran for President.

At the outset of the war in Afghanistan a few months after the attacks of 9/11, there was a feeling that invading Afghanistan was justified since the masterminds of the plot were situated there but more importantly, Osama Bin Laden was there. If anyone was responsible for 9/11 it was him. However, rather than giving what the Generals at that time wanted and needed (namely manpower) there was limited deployment and limited support meant to satisfy the public desire to see the Taliban wiped out. Soon thereafter (and shortly before Cheney made his bold proclamation) the Taliban were run out of the capital but that didn't mean that this was the end to the conflict.

No matter how much time passes, our mindset as a country remains one that has long been fostered by World War II movies and action films. Once the enemy is in retreat then that means that victory is secured. Now the Taliban and Al Queda may have fled Kabul and retreated into the Hindu Kush mountains of the region but they certainly aren't gone. The people who perpetrated the attacks of 9/11 were not an army in the traditional sense but a group inspired by the same ideals. When you have so many far reaching sects, when will you declare victory? When the entire organization ceases to exist or when one cell is eliminated. What we need to understand is that Afghanistan is potentially even more complex than Iraq in that much of the region has been transformed over time into something that almost resembles the Old West rather than the country it once was before the Soviet invasion.

At that time, many military leaders realized that and they wanted sufficient forces to be brought in to defeat the enemy and cause more mayhem amongst the enemies than what they could do with the troops that were intially authorized. But leaders at the time launched into the campaign that Iraq was the true threat and Afghanistan was left to the wayside. It was termed a victory because the cowboys wearing black hats were driven out of Dodge. That didn't mean they weren't going to return but that they were waiting for another day. Now don't misunderstand this to mean that this is the fault of the brave servicemen and women who have been fighting over there since the beginning. They have and continue to accomplish the mission set before them. What was an injustice to the sacrifice that they have made was that the war in Afghanistan was treated like a minor skirmish compared to what was happening in Iraq and now that the withdrawl from Iraq is more or less a done deal, Afghanistan is being looked at like a black sheep.

So now the dilemma for Obama remains; should he commit more troops to a fight that should have had more troops at the outset (the result of which would mean going back on his campaign promises) or should he withdraw our troops much the way the Soviets did once they realized that Afghanistan wasn't going to yield to their whim? It's a complex dilemma and at stake are the lives of many more servicemen and women who continue to operate in the region. It would be a disservice to them and the memory of those who gave their lives there (and in Iraq) to believe that they are nothing more than pawns but that's precisely what they are being treated as by our leaders. For Cheney to come back now and make statements "Obama doesn't have the stomach to make the right decision in Afghanistan" seven years after declaring that the Taliban was permanently defeated there smacks of hypocrisy and out and out lying with regards to the situation in Afghanistan. So then who created the dilemma and who has been left to clean up the mess of others?