| | |  Editorials | Issues | November 2009 
Veterans Group Tells President Obama: Don’t Escalate in Afghanistan
 Derrick Crowe - Rethink Afghanistan
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November 17, 2009
Veterans for Rethinking Afghanistan is gathering signatures for a simple message they plan to deliver to the White House: Don’t escalate.
On Veterans Day the Brave New Foundation released this video to place pressure on President Barack Obama not to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. The proposed escalation, which Obama is expected to decide on in the next few weeks, means sending up to 40,000 more troops to the region.
In this video, US Marine Corps Veteran, Sgt. Devon Read, said that:
"Further troops in Afghanistan is going to escalate the violence, it's going to escalate the Taliban recruiting effort and its certainly not going to create a better situation."
Here’s the text of the petition, which you can sign at the Rethink Afghanistan website
Dear President Obama,
News reports indicate that you plan to send between 34,000 and 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
We urge you to reconsider this decision.
Expanding the war in Afghanistan will make Americans less safe, not more so.
Less than 100 members of Al Qaeda remain in Afghanistan. The Karzai government we once supported is controlled by warlords and is riddled with corruption. Pakistan’s stability will be gravely imperiled by an expansion of the war. Hundreds if not thousands of troops will be killed, along with countless civilians. Anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world will be inflamed by civilian bloodshed, facilitating recruitment by terrorist organizations.
The war will cost billions of dollars when we can least afford it, and will stymie your domestic agenda.
The cost of sustaining a military force in Afghanistan is $1 million per soldier per year – that’s close to $100 billion dollars annually with the troop increase. With the economy in shambles, the deficits generated by these enormous costs will compromise your domestic legislative agenda both fiscally and politically.
The United States has no vital interest in Afghanistan. If you choose to further escalate troop levels in Afghanistan, you will be making the biggest mistake of your presidency.
Please reject General McChrystal’s troop requests and begin the process of exiting U.S. forces from Afghanistan. |
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