Exit Strategy for Afghanistan?
President Obama unveiled a $275 billion housing rescue plan.
President Obama received a request from GM and Chrysler for an additional $14 billion in emergency federal loans.
And oh, by the way, President Obama also ordered 17,000 additional American troops sent to Afghanistan.
That news kind of got lost in all the financial news, but it’s the most important news of all. An additional 17,000 troops increases the American presence in Afghanistan by almost 50 percent. That’s a huge jump and, we are told, there are more to come.
But so far, we haven’t heard any plan for Afghanistan from the Obama administration. In fact, the 60-day review of Afghanistan ordered by President Obama is barely under way. Yet already more troops are on the way.
Afghanistan, of course, is a war we should have finished before we invaded Iraq. But now, seven and a half years later, things have changed. Violence is up. The Taliban’s back in charge of much of the country. Al Qaeda rules the Afghan-Pakistan border. And Karzai’s corrupt government is shaky at best.
All the more reason why we must ask the same questions of Obama’s war today that we asked of Bush’s war yesterday: What’s our mission in Afghanistan? And what’s the exit strategy?
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