Peace for Our World

General McChrystal has made a request to President Obama for 60,000 more troops to support the war in Afghanistan. Do you think the President should authorize this request to send them there? Or should he take a look at the situation we have before he decides on the future of our country and those men, women and families that will be affected by his decision?

I believe that President Obama needs to take a look at the circumstances our country is facing at present. We are currently involved in two wars and we do not have mandatory military service policies in place at this time. This situation only allows for voluntary enrollment, which greatly limits the number of available troops we can have on reserve. Depleting our existing base of military personnel will create greater circumstances of risk to our own country borders and those of our allies. The United States is now facing war in many parts of the world and it is imperative that we utilize our resources as effectively as possible. Keeping such a high percentage of our military personnel in one region of the world makes us more vulnerable to further assault in other areas.

The army is already spending $1.1 billion to provide facilities for additional troops in Afghanistan and plans to start and additional $1.3 billion in construction next year. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/). The troops, which are in addition to the 17,000 the president announced earlier would be sent to Afghanistan, will be charged with training and building the Afghan army and police force. The plans include doubling the army's ranks to 135,000 and the police force to 80,000 by 2011, the officials said. This level of spending demonstrates that we aren’t in any condition to allocate more money to this war. President Obama also has many other significant issues he is dealing with from national healthcare to resolving the financial crisis of our own country. These problems require his dedicated attention and more importantly funding to support their success. Continuing the tremendously high investment rate on the war will surely impact these important strategies necessary for our countries success. In the meantime the Pentagon continues to play the waiting game, while President Obama decides what strategy to pursue.

Probably the most important decision the President must consider before sending additional troops to Afghanistan is the devastating and long lasting impact it will have on those military personnel and their families. Sending more troops will surely result in many more deaths and more children who will grow up without a loving mother or father. How many more people from the United States need to die before we say enough? We have to provide these countries the fundamentals they need to support and fight their own interests so we can begin an organized extraction of our troops. No one really ever wins as a result of a war and presently the United States seems to be mostly impacted.


http://www.newser.com/