President Barack Obama announced last Tuesday plans to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and some Cal State Long Beach students and faculty are questioning the decision.
The plans were announced during a speech in front of cadets at West Point and broadcast live on television. The troop increase will bring the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to nearly 100,000.
Obama said during his speech that he decided to increase troops because he is “convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
He also said that forces will begin to withdraw as soon as July 2011 but did not give a deadline for complete withdrawal.
The move to increase troops was widely supported by Republicans in Congress.
“We believe the surge in Afghanistan has a good chance of working just like the surge in Iraq did,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told McClatchy Newspapers.
Many Republicans questioned the timeline.
“It has to be appropriate conditions or an arbitrary date. … You can’t have both,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in front of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., does not support a troop increase, according to her Web site.
Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., told the Whittier Daily News on Dec. 1, “We need to bring our soldiers home to their families.”
As stated in Obama’s speech, the U.S. initially invaded Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s harboring of al-Qaida after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Within a matter of months, al-Qaida was scattered and many of its operatives were killed,” Obama said.
“It is enough to say that for the next six years, the Iraq War drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy and our national attention — and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world.”
CSULB political science professor Edgar Kaskla said he is not sure if “Afghanistan is anywhere close to having a viable state form right now. It’s more or less Kabul and Kandahar and the rest of the country.”
The majority of Afghanistan is made up of tribal regions. According to the CIA’s World Factbook, 44.5 percent of the country’s population is 14 or under. Only 2.4 percent of the country is 65 or over.
“There is a huge opium trade,” Kaskla said. “So anything that helps that economy — a dictatorship, a democracy, or just plain corruption — will be tolerated if the poppy trade can keep going and earn these guys big money.”
Sophomore political science major Benjamin Levin said the U.S. has achieved its objective of upending al-Qaida in the region.
“There’s no definition of winning in Afghanistan,” he said, adding that the U.S. should not be spending its resources fighting the Taliban.
“We should be decentralizing power in a way that is consistent with Afghan traditions and empowering the tribal leaders,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif, said in a press release.
Rohrabacher said about any plans to reform Afghanistan, “It doesn’t work and never has. Not from Alexander the Great to the Soviets.”
President Barack Obama announced last Tuesday plans to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and Cal State Long Beach students and faculty are questioning the decision.
The plans were announced during a speech in front of cadets at West Point and broadcast live on television. The troop increase will bring the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to nearly 100,000.
Obama said during his speech that he decided on the troop increase because he is “convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
He also said that forces will begin to withdraw as soon as July 2011 but did not give a deadline for complete withdrawal.
The move to increase troops was widely supported by Republicans in Congress.
“We believe the surge in Afghanistan has a good chance of working just like the surge in Iraq did,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told McClatchy Newspapers.
Many Republicans questioned the timeline.
“It has to be appropriate conditions or an arbitrary date. … You can’t have both,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in front of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., does not support a troop increase, according to her Web site.
Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Calif., told the Whittier Daily News on Dec. 1, “We need to bring our soldiers home to their families.”
As stated in Obama’s speech, the U.S. initially invaded Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s harboring of al Qaeda after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Within a matter of months, al-Qaida was scattered and many of its operatives were killed,” Obama said.
“It is enough to say that for the next six years, the Iraq War drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy and our national attention — and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world.”
CSULB political science professor Edgar Kaskla said that he is not sure if “Afghanistan is anywhere close to having a viable state form right now. It’s more or less Kabul and Kandahar and the rest of the country.”
The majority of Afghanistan is made up of tribal regions. According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, 44.5 percent of the country’s population is 14 or under. Only 2.4 percent of the country is 65 or over.
“There is a huge opium trade,” Kaskla said. “So anything that helps that economy — a dictatorship, a democracy, or just plain corruption — will be tolerated if the poppy trade can keep going and earn these guys big money.”
Sophomore political science major Benjamin Levin said the U.S. has achieved its objective of upending al-Qaida in the region and that the U.S. should not be spending its resources fighting the Taliban.
“There’s no definition of winning in Afghanistan,” he said.
“We should be decentralizing power in a way that is consistent with Afghan traditions and empowering the tribal leaders,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif, said in a press release.
Rohrabacher said about any plans to reform Afghanistan, “It doesn’t work and never has. Not from Alexander the Great to the Soviets.”