Opinion
Obama and the Afghanistan “problem”
President Barack Obama has a public relations problem when it comes to Afghanistan, to say the least.
Once the must-fight war for America, the decade-long mission has spiraled into a series of U.S. missteps and violent outbreaks that have left few ardent political supporters. After NATO detained a U.S. soldier Sunday for allegedly killing sleeping Afghan villagers, Republicans and Democrats alike pointed to the stress on troops after years of fighting and reiterated calls to leave by the end of 2014 as promised, if not sooner.
“It’s just not a good situation,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “Our troops are under such tremendous pressure in Afghanistan. It’s a war like no other war we’ve been involved in. We’re moving out, as the president said. I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Likewise, many Republicans, who as a party fought against a quick exodus in Iraq and criticized Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign promise to end the war, are now reluctant to embrace a continued commitment in Afghanistan.
“There’s something profoundly wrong with the way we’re approaching the whole region, and I think it’s going to get substantially worse, not better,” said GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. “I think that we’re risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may, frankly, not be doable.”
American voters appear frustrated as well. In results from a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Sunday, 55 percent of respondents said they think most Afghans oppose what the United States is trying to do there. And 60 percent said the war in Afghanistan has been “not worth fighting.”
The latest incident in Afghanistan was disturbing: At 3 a.m. Sunday, an American staff sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., allegedly wandered 500 yards from a special operations base in the southern Kandahar province and began shooting villagers as they slept. As many as 16 Afghans were killed, including nine children, before the shooter apparently returned to base and turned himself in.
