Opinion

By Kyle Serfass
Columnist

“You break it, you own it.”
-Former Secretary of State Colin Powell of Afghanistan

Long-time readers of my column know that I am quite liberal-minded. With many of my articles, including last week’s article about Rep. Joe Wilson, I have attacked many of the ideas of the Right and of Republicans. Indeed, the recent slowness of passing and opposition to health care reform have me constantly bridling against those who would try to destroy the public option, which I view as the only way to ensure that all Americans will get decent health care. However, one issue has me bridling just as frequently and as hard against fellow Democrats and members of the Left: Afghanistan.

Follow up:

Everyone knows that violence is escalating in Afghanistan. The past two months have seen increased American casualties. Our European allies are suffering losses (the recent death of 6 Italian soldiers due to a bomb sparked a public outcry in Italy to pull troops out). Add to that serious accusations of corruption in the last Afghan election, leading to a mutual distrust between the Afghan people and government, and things are certainly looking bad over there. With all of these factors, it is little wonder that Army General Stanley McChrystal has warned the White House that, with the current goals set up for our troops, unless more troops and resources are sent to Afghanistan, it will not only be impossible to defeat the insurgency, we won’t even be able to protect the Afghan people.

According to Reuters, McChrystal wants to see a “revolutionary” change in our goals in Afghanistan, with our troops focusing more on protecting the Afghan people and less on killing insurgents. In order to do this, more troops and resources are needed. President Obama has said that, before he agrees to send in more troops, he wants to review and revise our strategy, and McChrystal has said that the need for resources and troops might change if our goals and strategy change.

However, any plans Obama might have to send more troops are facing stiff opposition from Democrats in Congress. Democrats opposed Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and continued to oppose it even as evidence showed that it was successful. As one who initially opposed the surge, I know what it is like to be mistaken on that issue and tried to be man enough to admit it, and that is why I was so upset when the Democratic party made it so hard for presidential candidates in 2008 (including Obama) to admit that the surge had worked. Now, the Democrats stand opposed to sending more troops into Afghanistan because the war is losing popularity. Clearly, they want all of the fighting that started during the Bush administration to be over with as soon as possible.

To me, not giving our soldiers the support they need, to at least protect the civilians of Afghanistan from insurgents is unthinkable. I have always stood opposed to the Iraq War, but like most Americans I viewed the war in Afghanistan as necessary, and I still hold that view today. Fighting in Iraq may have been started on false pretenses, but fighting in Afghanistan was not. Now, when the death toll is mounting and our troops need support the most, it seems the Democrats want to deny them that support so that they are not viewed as going back on their opposition to troop surges. To me, this puts at least the lives of our soldiers and the Afghanis at risk, if not the lives of all Americans.

Now don’t get me wrong; I oppose a lot of things that conservatives claim are necessary for our national security. I oppose the use of torture on our detainees, support the closing of Guantanamo and secret prisons, and believe those that supported or conducted mistreatment of detainees should be brought to justice. However, if the mission in Afghanistan is on the brink of failing, we are at risk of the Taliban and warlords retaking the country, and if our troops need more support to hold their own, then we owe it to them to give them our support.

I’m sure that many Democrats are hoping that, just as we are slowly preparing to pull out of Iraq and hand matters over to the Iraqis, we can soon do the same in Afghanistan, and they fear that increasing troops there will only cause us to stay there longer. However, if there is a serious risk that we will lose the war if we do not add troops, we cannot just stay the course and hope for the best. Perhaps some members of Congress would not mind if things deteriorated so much in Afghanistan that we had to leave. However, even if this would not put Americans in increased danger of terrorism (which in all likelihood it might) this would be extremely cruel to the Afghanis themselves. We would basically put them at the mercy of the Taliban once again, many of whom, I’m sure, would seek deadly retribution against those who supported the American-supported governments even by voting. Saying that this is not our concern is inhumane, as we were the ones who brought the instability to Afghanistan in the first place.

Perhaps we cannot hope to completely eradicate insurgency in Afghanistan. But we need to at least attempt to make some areas a safe haven for the Afghan people and for Democracy. If our generals say they need more support to achieve this, than no political considerations should stand in our way. I hope that the Democrats will come to understand this, and that Obama will make the right choice and send more troops over there, as he seems to be preparing to do.