President Obama's plan for increasing troops in Afghanistan is in the US's best interest.

An increase in troop strength for the war in Afghanistan is not a popular notion, but it isn't meant to please anyone. In fact, any wartime decision thrust on the war fighters in the field based solely on the political ramifications of the decision at home is suspect at best. The Obama administration has taken considerable heat for having taken the time to carefully consider the strategy and feasibility of US armed conflict in Afghanistan. The former Vice President has called it "dithering," and many critics say that the president has taken a lot of time to come up with the same answer former President Bush would have come to in days. This is erroneous. During the time President Obama has been considering his decision on Afghanistan, his cabinet has been busy including our allies. His staff at the Department of Defense has had the opportunity to truly lay out a definitive purpose for action, one that includes measurable steps forward with the ability to know when progress is being made. It is simply not possible to leave the strategy to the vague and immeasurable concept of "winning the war on terror." The idea that a war on terror can be won is of the same fallacy as making a military operation "safe." It is the definition that has been missing. Just as it is impossible to remove any possibility of injury or damage during a military operation, so it is not possible to eliminate the possibility of terrorist activity from the world. By its nature, terrorism is unstoppable, as any single individual with a grudge can foment terror through violence. It is, therefore, a most reasoned approach for the president to gather his experts and ask the really hard questions from beginning to end. Why are we fighting in Afghanistan, who are we fighting, what do we hope to gain, and when are we done? It is in this careful analysis that there is hope, grim as the situation is that there can be an end to this strife, but it requires something the US has rarely been able to provide-dependable, clear political and economic support for a defined military path forward. The three arms of power for a nation state must be in harmony if its projection of power is to be effective. Going into a war with the goal of "bombing them back to the Stone Age" is a failed proposition from the start. In many cases, the very targets of the war are already living a life of bare sustenance with veritably nothing of value to destroy. This is particularly applicable to an enemy that is not a nation state. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have no country; therefore they aren't hindered by the destruction of infrastructure, threats against its political efficacy, or even threats to the well being of a population. Rather, theirs is a war of ideology, and more importantly, the destruction of differing ideologies. When the enemy considers the death of those fighting the war on its behalf a cause for celebration, then the normal concept of warfare has been drastically skewed. Having said this, there are still fundamentals of warfare that remain applicable. Mass on the battlefield is still an important tenet of conflict, regardless how fleet the opposing forces are. War is truly an ugly business, one the American public has rarely considered on a personal basis. Amongst themselves, war fighters distill their craft to its essential elements: killing people and breaking things. This is increasingly difficult to apply as the media, embedded with our fighting forces, has the ability to beam back the violence nearly live to the American population, with its concomitant generation of outrage. It is both saddening and heartening to hear a president willing to say the words "capture or kill" when discussing Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. There are those who say there are enough forces there already, and others who hold that another 30,000 is insufficient. Again the president has evaluated the situation and has determined a little of both to be correct. The additional 30,000 troops do not make a drastic increase in combat capability, but an incremental one. The additional 30,000 troops will allow US forces the leeway to continue to engage the enemy and still be able to increase the focus on training and preparing the Afghans to fight on their own. The president has made it clear that the US will not remain in Afghanistan forever, thus the announced target date to begin withdrawing troops. While he has come under fire for doing so, it is essential to our allies and specifically the Afghans to understand that they have a limited time in which to step up and assume responsibility for the defense of their country, and they better take advantage of it. At the same time, it is but a target date to begin the withdrawal process, it by no means is an idication to the Taliban or Al Qaeda that in July of 2011, that regardless the situation on the ground, the US is leaving. That would be folly, and the president was careful in his word usage to make that clear. Likewise, our NATO allies were specifically mentioned in the president's announcement to spotlight the notion that this is the first time in the history of NATO that the coalition has actually used article five for the collective defense. He made it clear more is expected of NATO nations as this is a global threat and most geographically juxtaposed to NATO nations. Finally, much has been discussed about the concept that we have erred by sending the fighting force to Afghanistan since we believe that Al Qaeda leadership is resident in the border regions of Pakistan. This belies the nature of politics and allegiances. The president is focused on nurturing a positive diplomacy with our allies the Pakistanis, a prudent stand considering they are a nuclear armed nation. Naturally progress in getting Pakistan to take action in the border regions has not been as successful or rapid as the US would like, but the region and its own instabilities make it slow going on that front. Americans like to envision the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan the same away we see the borders between the US and Canada and Mexico: they aren't. The tribal population of that region has little interest in nor allegiance to either national government. They live as their ancestors did, moving nomadically from region to region based on the survival needs weather and food and water availability foist upon them. They have greater respect for local "warlords" than the central government because it is these "warlords" that have given them the greatest protections and assistance in the past. The US must respect the Pakistanis efforts to enter those areas from the Pakistan side and focus on moving from the Afghan side, this pincer like process holds the greatest possibility, if not the only possibility, of success. In all, the president has made a somber, carefully evaluated decision that Al Qaeda and the Taliban pose a grave threat to the world, and the quelling of that threat is in the Strategic National Interest of the United States. Once the decision is made by the National Command Authority that this effort affects US National Interests, it is passed to the military for execution. As Gen McCrystal eloquently put it: "There may be those who question whether we can do it, those who question whether we should do it, but no one may question whether we will do it." Though he asked for between 40,000 and 90,000 additional troops, he and the troops will do their job with the additional 30,000. I simply ask... Would it not affect the economy more leaving this to drag on to 2024? Troops will be withdrawn by 2011, that has been clearly stated, is it not worth that little bit extra to bring an almost immediate hault rather have this continue another 14 years?