One of the key purposes for creating our Union was to provide for the common defense of the states and the people. To ensure that we have liberty we must be protected from enemies both foreign and domestic. Defending the Constitution of the United States from those enemies is part of the oath that every soldier of our armed forces takes upon himself or herself when enlisting.
Since 9/11, the threat of terrorism against the United States has been a driving force behind our military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those called to serve in those conflicts have served valiantly. However, there remain differences of opinion on whether these “wars on terror” are working, or if they should continue.
After much delay, President Obama recently called for an additional 30,000 troops to be deployed to Afghanistan. He stated, “We must come together to end this war successfully.” Just two months ago, Matthew Hoh, a State Department official who had served in the Marine Corps and fought in Iraq, submitted his letter of resignation. He had been serving as a diplomat in a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan. Among the reasons Hoh gave for his resignation was the following:
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan. I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end. To put simply: I fail to see the value or the worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war.”
Having served in Vietnam, I wholeheartedly support our troops and I can understand the frustrations that they and many other Americans feel when our soldiers are placed in situations where their objectives are not clear. If we are going to put our servicemen and women in harms way, we must ensure they have an unambiguous path to victory. Congress has the explicit power to declare war and to fund such wars. Without clear intentions as to what is to be accomplished and without a declaration of war, we are not supporting our troops to the fullest extent required.
In such circumstances, I believe it is better to not enter into a conflict at all, or if already involved, to return home promptly. The current deployment of 30,000 troops with Obama’s assurance to withdraw them in 18-months does nothing to improve the situation and may only exacerbate the situation in Afghanistan.
I would like to address another point on this issue that seems to be absent from the current debate regarding the “war on terror.” First, how do we fight a war on a tactic, such as terrorism? A tactic is a plan, a maneuver, a belief. Wars are fought against countries or regions. However, terrorism and its supporters are a real threat that is not going to simply disappear. But to understand the terrorist threat we need to focus on the full source of the problem.
Can we honestly fathom how Osama bin Laden is able to coordinate such vast terrorist operations while holed up in the mountains of Pakistan? Where do these Islamic terrorist groups get their arms? Who is funding their operations? Why are terrorists infiltrating our society at unprecedented rates? Who stands to benefit from their activities? These are all critical questions. In recent years, we have seen a great deal of evidence showing Russian and Chinese sponsorship of these terrorist operations (KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko exposing bin Laden’s second-in-command, al-Zawahiri, as a Russian agent and the arrest of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout are just two examples). Giving aid and comfort to foreign nations who support anti-American terrorist groups flies in the face of the Constitution, which terms such activities as treasonous. At the very least, foreign aid of any kind from the Federal Government is an unconstitutional activity.
In order to effectively combat terrorist groups, we must seek out the source of their financial and political strength. Attacking it through continued “wars” on terror is not likely to resolve the problem. Terrorism is the method. But what is the ultimate objective? And what or who are the driving forces behind it? If we can answer these questions and respond accordingly, I believe we will be much more successful in our efforts to thwart the terrorist threat facing America today.
(Originally posted at www.votechick.com)
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Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
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The war on terror isn’t a war on a method, it’s a war against an ideology. And if you float around on this website, you’ll see that no one can make anyone else change their mind about anything. The terrorists say we should all be exterminated simply because we do not share their religious beliefs. No one can change their mind about that. What they say and what they believe are NOT the same thing, IMO. They use their religion to commit murder. You can’t fight that with diplomacy and if I understand things, Obama has finally conceded you can’t negotiate with these kinds of people. I mean really, what the heck does a terrorist in Iraq or Syria care whether I go to the Baptist church, the Mormon church or a Muslim Mosque? He doesn’t care, but it’s a great excuse to kill people. Hard to fight that – and our Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. These terrorist trials are going to be a nightmare and a joke because the terrorists will assert their constitutional right to practice their religion and when constitutional rights are pitted against the laws of the land, it’s a bloody mess with no winners. Thanks Obama. We’re bleeding money from every pore and you opened up the door to this mess which will be appealed for decades no matter who wins by letting these trials take place in our courts instead of the military tribunals outside our borders. I’m not savvy on military tribunals but I think there is only one appeal permitted. Hand over your wallet, folks!
As for attacking the source of their finances, good luck with that! Reduction in our dependence on foreign oil is the only way that’s going to happen. Does anyone really see the left agreeing to drill on our soil and off our shores, build nuclear power plants and whatever else it takes to keep from sending money to the countries that train and harbor the terrorists? Trust and believe that if we stop buying their oil, the sheiks are not going to do a drawdown on their harem and palatial estates, they are going to drawdown on their support for terrorists. It really is shades of Vietnam. Our own government is not going to let us win this war and our young men and women are going to continue to be maimed and killed on foreign soil. The environmentalists need to get a clue. The Navy has shown us how to safely handle nuclear power. There will NOT be another Chernobyl. And our soldiers are a damn sight more important than a handful of seals, polar bears and elk, who wouldn’t be harmed by the drilling anyway.
How does a comment on a story about defending America turn into a rant against environmentalists? Unbelievable!!
Chick,
It should come as no surprise to you that Russian arms are finding their way into the fray. Our military’s demise is their win, or at least according to the paradigm of the last couple decades. When Fundamentalist Islam was threatening the Soviet southern borders and they invaded Afghanistan, their failure was due in no small part to the arms we supplied to the Mujahideen. If we had known at the time that fanatic Muslims were also going to be our bane, we may have been less supportive of the Mujahideen and turned a blind eye to Soviet efforts to contain their borders.
If we are to contain the threat that Al Qaeda would pose were they in possession of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, we will need the aid of the Russians and the Chinese. I think we have a better chance of bringing them on board with our current President as opposed to the cowboy who preceded him. Bush was hated throughout the rest of the world and Obama’s Nobel Prize was seen as a renunciation of the former administration and its perceived imperialist policies as much as it was for anything Obama may have done in the name of world peace. He may indeed be the man we need to forge the alliances necessary to maintain stability in a chaotic world.
I hated seeing the 30,000 troop surge as much as the next guy if for no other reason than we simply can’t afford it but I am certainly not privy to the intelligence reports that must have prompted that surge. If the appeal that President Obama seems to have in the rest of the world can be harnessed into working agreements with China and Russia to prevent a nuclear armed Taliban or Al Qaeda, he will have earned that Nobel Peace Price honestly and we may not have to shoulder the military burden alone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1kHtFH4rU&feature=player_embedded
I think that about sums it up.
Chuck, I can’t help but wonder how fervent you were about having a clear unambiguous path to victory in 2003 when we first entered Afghanistan. And I saw no mention of our conflict in Iraq in your post.
I’m curious to know what your feelings and statements were then. Without a doubt, our initial effort in Afghanistan was badly managed, too lightly assaulted, and the conflict had no clear battle plans or decisive strategies- starting 8 years ago, and continuing on to now.
I don’t like our troops being there at all. But I don’t like the thought of Pakistan, our weaker sister in this conflict, losing a few of their nuclear weapons to Al-Quida or the Taliban either. Both those outfits have pretty clear ideas as to what to do with them if they ever get their hands on ‘em, and I’ll bet their plans involve us.
That possibility could become all to real, all too quickly. And since Pakistan’s oldest and bitterest enemy, India, is also armed to the teeth with nukes, all of us are a damn sight closer to the realities of full atomic war than we ever were in the 50 years of the Cold War.
We are not going to ever win in Afghanistan. The best we can hope for, and the best we can accomplish, is a small degree of keeping a measure of border control to allow time for our allies- Pakistan and India, to establish more effective control of an area that is now a lit fuse.
We are beginning to address the full seriousness of this very late. We should have been far along by now. What happened in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008?
Obama’s ‘much delay’ was at most 11 months. That’s all the time he’s been in office. Where was your voice in those 8 lost years?
I tend to doubt that standing by, hunkered down in our crumbling back yard bomb shelters while much of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan turn into glassed-over slag heaps will do the trick. It’s rotten, no matter how I look at it, but for the very first time, we have an end plan. Viet Nam should have taught that lesson as a first step before we ever sent in our first troops, but it was forgotten in the rush to war.
I agree. Terrorism is an ideology. You cannot free this world from terrorism by waging wars that lead no where!! What has come out of Iraq till date???? WMDs or Terrorists!!!what??? Has that war helped America or Iraq?? All it has done is killed soldiers and Innocent civilians ..that’s it!
There is absolutely no point in sending extra troops to Afghanistan when each one of us knows it is not going to change anything at all!!
This war is not against a set of people…it’s against a “thought” that makes them “terrorists”
You can kill as many people as you want in the name of terrorism, but it cannot kill the ” thought”
I wasn’t holding my breath waiting for Heilison to respond to questions concerning his article here. Same talking basic talking points, but fewer, for an aspiring politician. he did get “Constituition” in but didn’t reveal his thoughts on it in much detail in relaship to the his story. I don’t think Mike Simpson has much to worry about on his job security.
Some interesting comments here. I think I understand where he’s coming from. Chick seems to be bothered by our approach to this and continuing to fight against a method or even an idealogy will probably never end nor get rid of the threat. Just look at the civil wars that have ragad on for centuries in that part of the world over idealogy. I do think it is kind of a dumb name to call it a war on terror if it is really a specific group or idealogy because terrorism is all over the world.
I also wonder if Chick actually posts these or it is just his campaign on behalf of him. That seems to be how these things ususally work or at least it is rare for people running for national offices to reply to blog comments. I’m not holding my breath either.
But Jim I don’t see Simpson being very secure. When I talk politics with people locally they tend to either can’t stand Simpson or don’t have much of a clue about him and have no opinion either way. His bailout vote just before Obama came in seems to have upset a ton of people. And if you are bothered by Chick not discussing the Constitution enough in this post, though I thought he applied it pretty well a few times in it, then I’d imagine you have even less love for Simpson. I can’t recall Simpson EVER mentioning how the Constitution effects his votes. I don’t know that he really applies it in his decision making. If he does he sure has a very generous view of what it says government should be getting its hands into. I’m definitely not impressed with him when it comes to that.
AS for the one comment regarding Russia and China needing to be our allies on this, that’s like the police asking the mob to help them fight crime in the city. Good luck with that approach.
You could be very right Pelagius, several years ago Simpson put a $300K earmark in a VA Appropriations Bill to buy 2 months of water for Jensen’s Grove Pond in Blackfoot. Now what the hell did a pond have to do with funding the VA?. Now according to LocalNews8 Simpson is getting Madison Mem. Hospital in Rexburg $300K to computerized medical records. Funny how things money projects come out before an election.
Of course Simpson has the obvious advantage over Hieleson being a sitting Congressman and has close access to money for community grants. Simpson and Mike Crapo have been living off political support from the INL also. They claim sole resposibility for INL funding, Crapo uses the INL as a cash machine for his PAC.
Where was Simpson and Crapo when Bush and Cheney were sacrificing American Troops and Money in Iraq for the Oil?.
I think some good points are made in this post.