President Obama Set To Announce Troop Drawdown In Afghanistan:

     Tonight President Obama is giving a speech to announce that we are going to start drawing down our military forces in Afghanistan. It has been speculated that we are set to bring home ten thousand soldiers by years end, and possibly twenty thousand by the summer of 2012. Whether you agree with the President or not, this is not an easy decision for him to make. What will the future Afghanistan look like? The possibilities are limitless.

     I have been tempted to think we should gather up our troops and equipment and get out of that hell hole as fast as possible. However, when push comes to shove, I think the President his making a good choice by drawing down our forces slowly. The last thing we need is to let that region of the world fall into complete chaos once again. Afghanistan is a hot bed for fanaticism, it is going to take time for the people to establish a government for themselves. 

     One reason we can't just up and leave are the logistics that go into transporting 120,000 troops and their equipment. Massive amounts of military hardware have been brought into Afghanistan and they have to be taken out carefully. We can't risk leaving behind weapons and hardware that could be used on Afghan civilians by a future force similar to the Taliban. We also don't want anything left behind that could be sold to our enemies and used on our soldiers. The Soviets made this mistake in the late eighties and early nineties when they were withdrawing from Afghanistan. They continued to supply the Mujaheddin, which in turn later turned those weapons against Afghan civilians, and even later, American troops. Lets be careful what we leave behind, someone can always find a market for military hardware.

     Afghanistan also has a long history of not supporting a centralized government, it is a tribal region consisting of many governing bodies. When we took down the Taliban we installed a centralized government in Kabul that has not produced a very good track record so far. Every day we hear of corruption and malfeasance on the part of the Karzai government. The Karzai government is nowhere near competent enough to keep the Taliban from reasserting their presence, and let's be honest nobody wants to see the Taliban reassert themselves. Whether it is the Karzai government or a newly formed Afghan council, government, regime, whatever the people want to call it, they are going to need time to train security forces. We can't just leave and let civilians get slaughtered.
     I am glad to here that we are finally starting the process of leaving Afghanistan. This was a war that came out of necessity, unfortunately it has become an endless conflict with no clearly defined mission. I hope we learn a valuable lesson from Afghanistan. Nation building is impossible, unless the people of that nation participate in the building process. The Taliban has been weakened, Al Qaeda has been significantly broken, Osama Bin Laden is dead, we will be leaving the Afghan people in a better place than before we came. Afghanistan is a very complicated region I don't think anyone knows what is going to come of that country. Hopefully the Afghan people can eventually figure out what it is they want for their country. Unfortunately, an entire generation of Afghans has known nothing other than perpetual war. Hopefully peace will be a welcomed new way of life. Good Luck America!!