The Niles Star

When considering war strategy, it's best to start where you want to finish.

By admin

Ed Feulner: There is no timetable for victory

Published 12:04pm Thursday, December 10, 2009

For example: in Afghanistan the United States needs to destroy the Taliban.
The question is, how?

In his recent speech at West Point, President Barack Obama authorized sending some 30,000 more American warriors to Afghanistan – significantly fewer than commanding Gen. Stanley McCrystal asked for, but a solid step nevertheless.

“We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes,” the Commander-in-Chief told cadets.

But the president erred by setting an end date for the deployment.

Troops will start coming home in 18 months, Obama said.

That’s a mistake, because it gives the Taliban hope that they can simply outwait us.

We shouldn’t be setting a timetable for our troops to leave.

Instead, we should be explaining what they’ll accomplish.

When they meet those goals, they’ll leave, victorious.

“The Taliban will eventually come down from the hills, probably in dribs and drabs, when they’ve been sufficiently pummeled by the combined Afghan National Army and NATO forces, seen their base among the Afghan people undermined by improved governance and had their sanctuaries in Pakistan squeezed from the East,” former Defense Department official James Shinn told me recently. “This is going to take time.”
Our enemies need to know we’re committed to invest that time to achieve victory.

This, after all, is what happened in Iraq.

President Bush surged troops in, but didn’t announce when they’d be coming home.

Ed Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).