Dear Mr. President (On the Subject of Afghanistan)

Mr. President,

I am writing today to you today to express great concern and distress over your announcement of the new strategy for the Afghanistan war on this next Tuesday. It has been indicated in many news reports that you are planning to announce an escalation of the Afghanistan war, with up to 40,000 additional American troops being sent to that country. Now, admittedly, I am young (17 years old) and you are older (and the President) and therefore have the benefit of being wiser in the ways of the world. Nonetheless, I really think that this escalation of the Afghanistan war is an unwise decision to make, a decision which may compromise the success of your Presidency.

My greatest qualm with this Afghanistan escalation is that Afghanistan may become America's next Vietnam. Lyndon B. Johnson would probably be considered one of America's great presidents today if he had not made the decision to escalate the Vietnam War. I would certainly hate for your legacy to be compromised by an unpopular, endless, quagmire war just as Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy was. I can say, without a single doubt in my mind, that I would vote for you in 2012 if you didn't escalate this war and instead went about removing American forces from that country as swiftly as would be possible and prudent.

Mr. President, I don't really see what good end could be accomplished by American forces remaining there in harm's way. It seems to me that, just like Vietnam, Afghanistan is a war which can never be won. It will be, as Dexter Filkins called it, "the forever war". As far as I can discern, we are fighting terrorism in Afghanistan. Since terrorism has been with humanity from the beginning and with be with us 'til the end, and since terrorism is ingrained as a part of human nature which cannot be destroyed by any number of determined guns and armies, we will never be able to achieve a victory in Afghanistan if to fight and destroy the terrorists there is truly our goal. It seems to me that the only thing that can be done with the terrorists in Afghanistan is to contain them for an indefinite amount of time spanning infinitely off into the future, and, as I'm sure you will admit, that is not a feasible option. I suppose that is why you are attempting to lessen the corruption and uselessness of the Afghanistan government: you hope that someday they may take over counter-terrorism activities in their own country, and that the United States will no longer have to do it. But, Mr. President, please consider that the United States’s plan to get out of the Iraq war was to strengthen the Iraqi government and the Iraqi army over time, until the Iraqis could keep order themselves---and we are most certainly not withdrawn from that war yet. I'm afraid that the same fate may come to the Afghanistan war: indefinite guidelines for withdrawal spanning off into a distant future. If the goal is to stabilize the country of Afghanistan and its government, what tangible goals could there be to demonstrate the completion of this task? Are there any measurements of stability which are not purely abstract, considering that the stability of a country and of a government is an abstract concept? And are we to presume that we can stabilize a volatile Middle Eastern country which has been unstable and plagued by rarely-ceasing warfare and violence for the past several centuries? If you put these three questions to yourself, there may be created in your heart some creeping doubt about this planned escalation.

Mr. President, as I am sure that you well know, the United States army is already strained and over-stretched by these two ongoing wars; I don't think that the military should be further strained by an Afghanistan escalation. Many soldiers have been killed and many have been irreparably mentally or physically damaged. It is a terrible thing for our country that so many young people should be returning home, physically or mentally traumatized, from the ravages of war. A certain cousin-in-law of mine returned home from his tours of duty in Afghanistan so mentally disturbed that he ended up slitting his own wrists in an attempt to kill himself. He is now, fortunately, on some medication. And I am sure that my cousin-in-law is not unique in this sort of thing; I am sure that it's widespread in veterans across the country. Mr. President, it must be a great moral dilemma for you to contemplate having to send more of these young men and women off to war with the looming threat of their being killed or seriously injured, mentally or physically. It must create a terrible moral dilemma for you, just as it did for Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman and all of our other wartime Presidents, to remember that the buck ultimately stops at your desk; that it is you who will ultimately be responsible for further deaths and maimings of the young people in America's armed forces. I certainly hope that this moral dilemma will weigh heavily in your decision and in your announcement on this next Tuesday.

Mr. President, though I'm sure that you have already considered this, I would like to mention one last thing to you---one last thing which makes your indicated escalation of the Afghanistan war all the more distressing to me. Our presence in these Middle Eastern countries, our military involvement there, actually creates more terrorists than it destroys, for terrorist organizations can use the American presence (perceived as imperialistic, over-reaching, and infringing on the sovereignty of Middle Eastern peoples) as a recruiting tool. Our continued presence in Afghanistan is making us less safe, not more so; it is creating terrorists faster than we can destroy them. The National Intelligence Estimate of a couple years ago said as much, and I hope that you weigh this knowledge when making your decision on the Afghanistan war.

Mr. President, now that I have informed you of my personal viewpoint on the Afghanistan war, perhaps you can understand my great distress and concern upon hearing that it is a very likely thing that you will escalate this war. I know that my mother, my father, my grandparents, one of my uncles, and a few of my cousins feel quite the same way as I do about this: they don't want an escalation; they want us to commence withdrawal as soon as is possible. They don't believe that this war is a winnable war, and therefore see no point in escalating it. They, as Democrats or progressive Independents all, don't wish to see your presidential legacy compromised by such a war. They don't wish to see more soldiers killed and maimed, the American military more greatly strained, and at the same time more terrorists created. Mr. President, Harry Truman had a lot of guts; he refused to escalate the Korean War despite repeated requests from General Douglas MacArthur that Truman do so, by bombing the mainland of China. Harry Truman refused to escalate, fired the very popular General MacArthur, and was vilified at the time for it. However, today, Harry Truman is considered to be one of America's near-great Presidents. Truman stuck to his guns and his principles, and today he is honored for it. Truman considered what the reckless MacArthur did not: that bombing mainland China and widening the scope of the Korean War very well could have initiated a nuclear confrontation with Communist Russia and a World War Three. Mr. President, whatever your decision on Afghanistan is on this next Tuesday, I hope that in making it you will stick to your guns and stay true to your principles. Trust in your principles, your personal inclinations and beliefs, rather than your "expert" military advisers. Expert military advisers navigated John F. Kennedy's Administration into the embarrassing "Bay of Pigs" Fiasco; and Kennedy was wary of these military advisers after that, which perhaps may have given him greater success in diffusing the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Several expert military advisers in Kennedy’s Executive Committee wished to bomb the Russian missile sites in Cuba, which likely would have resulted in a devastating, chain-reaction nuclear war with Russia.) "Expert" military advisers came up with the "domino theory", which kept us in Vietnam for a number of long years; and in the end the whole theory was a flop and came to nothing. So, Mr. President, please don't necessarily trust the "expert" theories; trust in yourself and do what you think is right. I implore you, whatever your decision on Afghanistan, whether it be escalation or withdrawal or monotony, to at the very least stick to your principles and do what you think is right.


Sincerely,

Elizabeth Cable