Still no victory in sight for eight-year war

What does an endless war look like? It looks like a battle without a definite strategy, in which victory always remains uncertain because no one—not even the military—is sure what the goal is.

President Obama set aside $130 million for current wars out of a $668 billion defense budget for the 2010 fiscal year. However, the Pentagon is expected to ask Congress for $50 billion in emergency funding to support troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, though Obama has been clear about sticking to the normal budgeting process.

John Murtha, the chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations has recommended that the budget be increased by $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed. This being said, the final financial request is completely dependent on Obama's decision to escalate the number of troops deployed.

General Stanley A. McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has publicly endorsed sending 40,000 more troops to the region, adding to the 68,000 already there, but has still not received a decision on the matter from Obama.

The lack of decision-making about the war in Afghanistan is affecting not only the emergency defense budgets, but also public support. While the debates about sending more troops to Afghanistan continue, the war is not getting any closer to an end.

To add to the ambiguity of Obama's thought process with regard to troop escalation, it remains unclear when the final decisions will be made. If troop numbers are increased, there should be a clear reason and strategy that calls for it. If troop numbers stay the same, there needs to be a policy change to call for a strategy that has a plausible and
clear goal.

After interviews with Afghan citizens, Alissa Rubin, of the New York Times, concluded that, "daily life continues to be so precarious for many people, especially those outside Kabul, that they have prolonging the war. Our war strategies for the past eight years have shown little success, even with increased resources and troops. Clearly, our current situation in Afghanistan is in need of a shift towards effectively matching objectives with strategy. This refocus will ultimately end the war faster. If the political objective is to defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future, the U.S. needs an explicit indication of how to effectively carry out this goal through military action. While we wait for decisions, the U.S. military can only drift away from the political objective thus prolonging war, increasing costs and decreasing public support.

Rubin interviewed Mohammed Shefi, a graduate student in the pharmacy school at Kabul University, who stated that, "in the first days of the war, the Americans defeated the Taliban in just a few days, now they have more than 60,000 forces and they cannot defeat them." How can public support in Afghanistan possibly exist with results like these? If the job cannot be done even with more resources, the job is being done incorrectly.

There needs to be better coordination of financial distribution, a greater focus on building the Afghan army and police force, and more negotiations with the Taliban as a start toward departing from an aimless path in Afghanistan. The military strategy must coincide with political objectives. For example, if al-Qaeda is the main threat, the U.S. needs to be focusing on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The possibility of troop escalation or any military alterations will mark the beginning of a new military strategy in Afghanistan. The longer the U.S. waits for this decision, the longer the U.S. military lacks direction. The Obama administration needs to establish specific goals and create a viable plan for realizing these goals, so that there is, at least, a sketch of what "victory" will look like in Afghanistan.