Pure Common Sense

President Barack Obama stated in a press conference the other day that he intends to take a new policy direction in the War on Terror. He intends to challenge Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He called for a bipartisan spending bill to direct US dollars toward the region which is being co-sponsored by Senators John Kerry and Richard Lugar, a Democrat and a Republican, respectively. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also expressed support for the bill. Obama previously mentioned that he was setting up a time table for deploying troops out of Iraq. Combined with this new development, he appears to be following through on his strategy of shifting emphasis in foreign policy from the conflict in Iraq to the conflict in Afghanistan.

I did not vote for Obama in the last election, but I am happy to hear about this development. After the September 11^th attacks in 2001 there was a clear need to punish those who were responsible for inflicting such harm upon our country, these people being Al Qaeda, the perpetrators and the Taliban, their hosts and allies. The initial invasion of Afghanistan was one of the only times in history where pretty much everyone supported the war without reservation – another time being World War II after Pearl Harbor. The Revolutionary war a lot of people were opposed to. The Bush Administration had the unfortunate distinction of shifting from one of the most united times in our history to one of the most divisive times in a handful of months. When Obama talked about uniting the country again, I was very skeptical of that notion. After all, his record was one of the most liberal in Congress. But in this area today he is making progress and I like seeing that.

Afghanistan was initially the focus of all our efforts back in 2001 and 2002. However, once we invaded Iraq the whole focus shifted and we basically forgot about Afghanistan for a while. Looking back on it now it just doesn’t seem to make any sense. After all, the government of Afghanistan were the ones who sanctioned an attack upon our soil and Iraq had not done anything to us at the time. “They have WMDs” we were told – but later of course we found out otherwise. But they were not the ones who attacked us and there was no direct threat there as there was from Al Qaeda. Doesn’t it just seem like plain old Common Sense that we focus on those who attacked us and not those who had not attacked us. I do not know if there was some piece of flawed intelligence that we were basing all our decisions on that did not add up in the end, but that seems a distinct possibility.

Fortunately we can fix the problem now – better late than never I guess. But the situation has changed in Afghanistan in the past seven years. We cannot just expect to go in there and pick up where we left off before. The Taliban – whom we had the chance to annihilate once and for all back in the earlier part of this decade – is now a dispersed, potent and influential force in the government of the country. Afghanistan is different from Iraq in that there is a much larger share of influence held by tribal leaders. And the place of Pakistan cannot be underestimated. The western portion of Pakistan is still claimed by some Afghan groups even though the country ceded it over a century ago. In general the Afghan-Pakistan border exists in name only – nomadic people travel over it in the middle of the desert all the time undetected. There is little to no government control over the area. President Obama will not be able to do everything, but I think he is taking a wise course of action in placing his emphasis on Afghanistan and Pakistan and I hope that most Americans will support this. Even from a non-interventionist point of view the war was necessary because it was in retaliation to an attack on us (Pat Buchanan would agree there) and there is a duty to stick to a Just War course of action and follow through and rebuild.