Retribution or healthcare? Obama needs to be clear
Ron Walters/NNPA Columnist
Issue date: 8/30/09 Section: Politics
So, the question I have is whether there is a mission in Afghanistan more narrow in the sense that it is possible to pursuit bin Ladin with the assistance of the sympathetic Afghanistan government, now that it looks like Hamid Karzai has been re-elected. This means that the current policy must be reassessed and changed, especially in a context where there are major domestic initiatives that the administration has begun, the financing of which will severely strain its ability to pursue a war against the Taliban and do nation-building in Afghanistan effectively.
The opportunity is that public opinion polls are now showing that the American people have grown weary of the war in Afghanistan, not because of doubts about the just principle of retribution, but because they have historic domestic challenges that places this war in a decidedly lower priority. For the first time, the war in Afghanistan registers in the 20s depending on what poll you choose, suggesting that - and often indicating explicitly that - they want the U.S. to pull the plug on this war.
So what if Obama took them up on it? It would give him a golden opportunity he is likely not to get in the future: to close down two wars, save trillions of dollars that could be invested more urgent priorities like jobs, housing, education and health care - projects he has proposed that may cost Americans an estimated $9 trillion in the next ten years. The risk is that when the financial crisis is over, he could be blamed for having shut down the wider policy with Afghanistan, but he should continue, all the while, to vigorously hunt for bin Laden so as not to be vulnerable to the claim that he did not seek retribution for his attack on the U.S.
Obama has a lot on his plate now and it would be smart, even if it has some negative ripple effect, to take one big potentially disastrous problem off the table.
Dr. Ron Walters is Professor Emeritus of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press).
The opportunity is that public opinion polls are now showing that the American people have grown weary of the war in Afghanistan, not because of doubts about the just principle of retribution, but because they have historic domestic challenges that places this war in a decidedly lower priority. For the first time, the war in Afghanistan registers in the 20s depending on what poll you choose, suggesting that - and often indicating explicitly that - they want the U.S. to pull the plug on this war.
So what if Obama took them up on it? It would give him a golden opportunity he is likely not to get in the future: to close down two wars, save trillions of dollars that could be invested more urgent priorities like jobs, housing, education and health care - projects he has proposed that may cost Americans an estimated $9 trillion in the next ten years. The risk is that when the financial crisis is over, he could be blamed for having shut down the wider policy with Afghanistan, but he should continue, all the while, to vigorously hunt for bin Laden so as not to be vulnerable to the claim that he did not seek retribution for his attack on the U.S.
Obama has a lot on his plate now and it would be smart, even if it has some negative ripple effect, to take one big potentially disastrous problem off the table.
Dr. Ron Walters is Professor Emeritus of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press).
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