Brad Draper
Ms. Duquette
AP Government
26 September 2010
Issue Paper
Issue Paper Over The Afghanistan War
Controversy over the Afghanistan War really sparked when General Stanley McChrystal, a well-known U.S. military expert, gave a speech over the Afghanistan war strategy. "When I am asked what approach we should take in Afghanistan," General Stanley McChrystal concluded, "I say humility.” General Stanley McChrystal says that we should switch from a counterinsurgency strategy to a counterterrorism strategy and withdraw our American troops, and the war should be fought against al-Qaeda with mostly drones and Special Forces. General Stanley McChrstal created the controversy among Americans that are beginning to question the war and the strategies the military is using in the Afghanistan War. Republicans and Democrats are both mainly against the Afghanistan War. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steel says that this is a “war of Obama’s choosing.” Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said “I’ve got the sinking feeling we are getting sucked into something we will never get out of.” The majority of Republicans, along with the majority of Democrats, will agree that either the current strategies being used are ineffective or the war overall is getting us nowhere and should be discontinued and our troops be withdrawn. As McChrystal made clear in his speech, the strategy we are currently using is not effective at all. We could give a city in Afghanistan a fresh water well. However, this could create more harm than good. People could get upset on the placement of the well, get upset over why one city gets a well and the other doesn’t, the al-Qaeda could dominate the well and use it for members of the al-Qaeda only, and so on and so fourth. We are not able to establish a stable democracy in Afghanistan, it just is not happening right now. The messed up elections that took place recently in Afghanistan is a great example of how a democracy in Afghanistan will not work out. The best option right now is to simply withdraw our troops from Afghanistan and let Afghanistan figure their problems out for themselves rather than having America spend hundreds of billions of dollars and lose innocent American soldiers for a pointless purpose. However, there are still those that support the war. Those people are not specifically republican or democrat, conservative or liberal, because this is such a split war. Those people are likely divided amongst the political parties closely. Remember September 11, 2001 is the main reason for the continuing of the Afghanistan war. Afghanistan under the Taliban provided the springboard for the al-Qaeda attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on that sad day. The Taliban and the al-Qaeda are still in Pakistan. If we were to withdraw our troops from Pakistan, we would leave parts of Pakistan and other western countries open for mass murder from the Taliban and the al-Qaeda. There is a chance that when we withdraw our troops, that the Taliban will rise to power again and dominate all of Afghanistan through cruelty and harshness. Obama is beginning to realize that the cons outweigh the pros in this war. He is withdrawing all of our troops slowly still to this day and America is slowly exiting from the Afghanistan war, making the American public majority happy as a result.
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