Obama's Afghanistan Plan

On Tuesday evening at West point, President Obama addressed to the public about his Afghanistan plan. Obama plans to deploy 30,000 more troops and call on NATO allies to contribute another 10,000 soldiers to Afghanistan. With this number, it would bring the total number of U.S. troops there up to 100,000. He mentioned that his plan won’t be an open-ended and this will lead to a quick exit. The president promised to bring their troops back to the country within 18 months.

The war in Afghanistan has been lasting for more than 8 years. It started by the group of terrorists; Al Qaeda and Taliban. U.S. was also attracted by these terrorists on 9/11. Many people died and injured. After that people not only who are in U.S but also all countries started to worry about their security in life. So Obama would like to end this story as soon as possible in order to bring back all confidence. For this Afghanistan plan, U.S. aims to clean up all terrorists, especially Al Qaeda and Taliban leader, as well as rapidly build up a competent Afghan force.

Is this feasible? Is there any conflict occur?

In my opinion, there would be a conflict with the public and Democratic party sooner or later. This is because American people might not be satisfied with a high cost occurring from new military commitment during the economic hard time in the country. They might think that this expensive cost should be contributed to other project or development. Congressional Democrats have warned that the projected price tag of a new troop deployment could threaten Obama’s domestic agenda amid growing public unease over the widening federal budget deficit (Wilson, 2009).

Moreover, some democrats who oppose sending additional troops to Afghanistan have raised the possibility of new taxes to pay for the war. It could lead to a trouble approving a proposal for additional troops because of the costs and concern over its long-term national security implication (Wilson, 2009).

There are many issues to be reconsidered. For myself, I think it is impossible to clear everything within 18 months; it is too short to deal with this thing. This would raise some questions; do all the troops will still be brought back to the country if we can’t arrest the Al Qaeda and Taliban leader within 18 months? What is Obama’s back-up plan if everything is not going to be as what he expects? The president might have to reconsider this plan carefully again.

However, in the good side, he has showed the intention to bring a peace back to his people as well as to all nations. Since the security in life is one of the deepest need for all mankind, I think some confidence already occurred and this plan may be a good signal for ending the long story war in Afghanistan no matter what it is going to accomplish or not.