It was announced today that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The immediate question on most people’s minds, “why?” Still in his first year as president, Obama hasn’t exactly done much. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a big supporter of Obama. I believe Obama has the potential to do a lot of great things. He’s taking on a crap economy, massive health-care reform, and two wars. But so far, let’s be honest, none of these endeavors have been wrapped up. In his speech today, he addressed as much, saying that the Peace Prize is often given in the spirit of goals pursued, as an acknowledgement of ideals, more of a grant or fellowship than award. The Peace Prize, then, says, “You’ve inspired a lot of people, and we really like your mission statement. Great proposals. Here’s a little prestige to help carry on and further legitimize the fight.”
I know there’s going to be a lot of talk about this, that it’s almost a joke to give someone so young, as yet so unproven on the world stage, an award usually reserved for people who have been fighting and winning for world justice for years. I say, let it come. The Peace Prize, as Obama said, will have to be a challenge, a sort of highest scale lending of your dad’s Cadillac to the teenager for the weekend. Here, I know your young, but show me we can trust you with this.
And so all of this made me wonder about Afghanistan. As I wrote a couple of days ago, Obama is facing this massive decision about whether or not to send more troops. The head general is asking for 30,000-40,000 more, while many at home oppose this, and some say to bring them all home. He’s been given an ultimatum of sorts by this general: increase the troops, or lose the war. All of this spurring many questions: What is the value of fighting in Afghanistan? Can we win? What does winning mean? Basically, what will yield the highest return on our investment? If we pull out, will things be that bad for us? Will Al Queda and the Taliban take over and become the notorious hotbed of terror and insurrection? If we increase the troops, a proposal with little support from the left, will Afghanistan, itself, be able to stand so many enforcers? Would, then, the Taliban be pushed into Pakistan, a region already unstable and, perhaps, a greater potential threat with further destabilization?
[As a small insertion: I was recently asked, "Why did we go to Afghanistan? Have we been there this whole time?" I would say that I'm not the person to ask. I am hardly well-read on the news as compared to, well, some ideal news reader. But I gave it a shot: Yes, we've been there this whole time. We just had the 8-year anniversary a few days ago. We went there because our intelligence pointed to Afghanistan being the strong-hold of Al Qaeda, the terrorists who, among many other amazing feats of awful, attacked us on 9/11. The Afghany government was under the control of the Taliban, which, as I understand it, is a group loosely defined, currently, as an 'alternative government,' mostly made up of radical islamists and ex-military types. They created a haven for Al Qaeda. We went in in 2001, and ousted them. Some are still there, many have moved to Pakistan.]
The theme, it seems, for deciding on Afghanistan, has been to talk strategy first, then figure out resources. Instead of worrying about what we can give, what we can stand to loose, the idea has been to keep objectives in center. What are our goals? What do we want to achieve? Then, what will that take?
Of late, the missions have been refocused to quelling Al-Qaeda and less on the Taliban. The latest assessments are that there are maybe a hundred Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Wait, yes, I just said that. One hundred. I wont go off on a major commentary-tangent here. But I, too, find it hard to believe that we need an additional 40,000 troops to quell a hundred guys in the hills. However, having said that, I trust that I know very little about the situation, the obstacles, the region, etc. All I’m saying here is, I’d like to know more.
Meanwhile, the Taliban, which is, more and more, being redefined as a separate entity from Al Qaeda, is now seen to be more regional, that is, indiginous, with more localized goals, who probably no longer have the capacity to re-instill themselves at the top of Afghanistans government. They are considered less of a threat to the US.
The report today is that we probably have weeks left before a decision on this is made.
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