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Last year, I shook hands with President Barack Obama. He was a senator at the time and campaigned through my hometown in Virginia, where I was lucky enough to meet him. I recall him promising to bring our troops home from the Middle East as he stood in front of thousands of people.
But it looks like he didn’t live up to his word.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too disappointed. After all, Obama is a politician and they typically make promises solely to obtain enough votes to win an election. It is now almost a year after taking his oath of office and he has yet to fulfill a multitude of his commitments, especially those involving Afghanistan.
Last Tuesday, Obama announced he will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Even though he is only sending a portion of the support Gen. Stanley McChrystal requested, the decision to send thousands of soldiers is excessive and irresponsible. This move isolates him from his own party while Republicans are increasing in numbers and regrouping from last year’s defeat.
Ultimately, the generation that voted Obama into office will feel the repercussions of his costly decision.
The surge is expected to cost about $30 billion dollars for the U.S. This is financially irresponsible in a time when our country is trillions of dollars in debt and in the middle of a recession that has yet to fully recover. The money that will now go toward fueling an unnecessary war could have instead been better spent toward America’s crumbling education system or to revive the job market. Instead, the U.S. military will continue to spend frivolously in Afghanistan until not enough funding remains.
America’s reputation that Obama spent months trying to rebuild has also lost credibility with this surge. After the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize, its hope was that he would use it to advance goodwill in his international policy. Many hoped when Obama graciously received his prize, he would respond by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and take his role as a peaceful leader seriously. Now he is advancing to war and creating tension, not peace, with other nations.
Advancing further into this war will not only harm foreign relations, but also cause more division here in the U.S.
It is obvious our military system is flawed when soldiers have turned to suicide or massacring each other in reaction to the prospect of being deployed. With a surge, the future of the strongest military in the world does not look promising. There are still thousands of troops in Iraq. The cost of fighting two wars will weaken our forces and push many active duty members to take multiple tours to the Middle East. The funding simply is not available to continue a war in Afghanistan, and to increase troop numbers will increase America’s debt.
“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,” Obama said last Tuesday.
He acknowledges how devastating the war in Iraq has been, yet he will put the U.S. through a similar situation. Troops will be exhausted, resources will dry up and U.S. diplomacy will be weakened with the continuation of this war. Obama’s failure to recognize this makes me question him as a leader and as our commander in chief.
Our hope now lies in Congress, although if may not opt to not fund this surge. In 2002, when Congress hastily voted to send troops to Iraq, mistakes were made. Lawmakers have learned from their errors and recognize that Americans do not need more war involvement.
What we do need are elected officials to stand up and voice their concerns on behalf of Americans, and now is the time to call upon our representatives and tell them to block the passing of this surge. The problems within the U.S. must be made a top priority. If Obama cannot see that, our hope in him will diminish.
—Sarah Grieco is a public relations junior.
—This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to opinion@thedailyaztec.com. Anonymous letters will not be printed. Include your full name, major and year in school.
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