The Indefinite War

With President Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and the emphasis placed on a troop ‘surge’, we need to be reminded what we are fighting for. The “War on Terror” is a war that can’t be won, frankly. To end terrorism, we would need to infiltrate almost every nation on the planet with military personnel. Terrorism is a form of hatred towards another and is used to inhibit fear (terror) into another, which is what Al Qaeda did on 9/11. To end terrorism would be to end all hatred and desire of others to place fear into the American culture. We can never be successful at this. The so-called War on Terror is a Bush era phrase to evoke fear in the American people in order to evade Iraq and Afghanistan. A war on Al Qaeda is understandable, but a war on terror is unwarranted. The Bush framework is still being pursued by the Obama administration and many Republicans want a fight to the end, which tells me they are willing to keep troops there indefinitely. 

The War on Terror has high costs of both lives and monetary funds. The tens of billions of dollars that have been spend so far could have been used to initiate job growth, infrastructure improvements, education reform, renewable energy and so much more; not to mention the lives that would have been saved.

To face terrorism, we need to first protect our nation from the threats from within our own borders. Had we had a stricter program set up to investigate domestic threats and pursue an interest in those who seek terror on our nation, we may have avoided the attack at Fort Hood in Texas.

There is an old saying that states, in order to help others, we must first be able to help ourselves. The War on Terror is no different. To be proficient in national building in Afghanistan, we must first be proficient in nation building in the U.S. There is no exception.

If we can protect our borders to an extent that Al Qaeda would lose all desire to attack or terrorize the U.S. because they would stand no chance of succeeding, then and only then would we succeed at winning this war. Sun Tzu stated in The Art of War that “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.” This brings me back to the question of what are we fighting for? Are will willing to pursue the enemy with more and more troops, only to push them into neighboring Pakistan, while our own nation suffers from massive debt, infrastructure collapse, and climate change, all while falling behind many developed nations? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted today, “If we become weak and enfeebled by economic decline and debt, as we slowly are, America may not be able to play its historic stabilizing role in the world.” Without this stabilizing ability, we not only lose the chance to make a lasting impact in Afghanistan, we also fall further behind as a developed nation.

During President Obama’s speech at West Point, he mentioned that he has signed condolence letters to the families who have lost loved one’s in Afghanistan. I wonder how many more letters the President is willing to sign in order to fight this so-called War on Terror.