President Obama's plan for increasing troops in Afghanistan is in the United States' best interest

It is helpful in clarifying the proposition While my opponent puts forward some convincing arguments, I'd like to note that he has left my points largely alone. In refutation of my opponent's points. 1) This argument is a logical fallacy. Adding more troops does not make for an easier pullout at a later date. The obvious historical example here is Vietnam. There were many, many plans that were put forward by the United States High Command that were supposed to end the war quicker by adding more troops. Yet it did not work out that way. For reference (. http://www.pbs.org...). And although the situations are clearly not exact parallels, the similarities are too obvious to ignore. Simply put, placing 30,000 more troops into a country the size of France is not going to be a magic cureall in this situation. Will it help? Absolutely, but I remain steadfast in my belief that it will not be the key in resolving the situation in Afghanistan. 2) We all want to see a stable and peaceful Afghanistan. Yet I disagree with the President that this will somehow neutralize Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Fighting an insurgency is a very difficult thing to do. The Taliban or Al-Qaeda are capable of laying dormant in both Afghanistan and Pakistan only to emerge and strike with great force. Certainly the mission in Afghanistan has some effect on Al-Queda's effectiveness, yet if there is other countries that will harbour these terrorists, simply removing them from Afghanistan will not have the desired effect that President Obama is going for. Again, I fail to see how this specific policy will lead to American success in Afghanistan. If the key to maintaining Al-Queda is in Pakistan, then the problem needs to be dealt with in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan. 3)I empathize with General Stanley McChrystal a fine officer if there ever was one. Certainly I agree with my opponent - any successful strategy for Afghanistan has to include the ability for the Afghan people to protect themselves. Yet, the United States has been in Afghanistan for nine years now. There has been ample time to train this proposed Afghan army. Yet as this (. http://www.charlotteobserver.com...) article points out, there have been huge efforts to train up an Afghan army and police service, but they are fundamentally unreliable. McChystal's plan (. http://www.washingtonpost.com...) calls for an Afghan army of 240,000. Simply put, this is an impossible task. This would more than double the size of the current Afghan army, an army that the United States is having trouble filling out at this lower number. To suggest that they can build a reliable army of those numbers is simply impossible. Lastly, this whole mission is ostensibly about the stability of Afghanistan. Yet we know two things 1) Obama wants to have a point in the near future where most American troops will be pulled out of Afghanistan and 2) That Afghanistan is to be a functioning democracy. While the first point has been discussed quite a bit in our debate the second has not. The last Presidential election in Afghanistan was a disaster. Not only was there violence at voting stations, there was low voter turnout and widespread accusations of corruption (. http://www.washingtonpost.com...). Simply put this is not the start of a functioning democracy. This is the 2nd Presidential election held since the invasion in 2001 and there has been no sign of a burgeoning Afghan democracy. Democracy cannot be built overnight – that much is historically clear. But for a territory that the United States has had troops in for nine years now, the progress has been startlingly low and I don't see any signs that this measure as proposed by President Obama will change the tide.