Why is Obama Poised to Escalate a Bad War?

By Daniel Smith, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted February 21, 2009.

Last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates briefed President Barack Obama on Afghanistan and the Pentagon's proposal to send 15,000 more troops there by late spring. Obama is expected to accept the plan as a "down payment" on his pledge during the campaign to put more troops into the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents. These troops are only about half the number requested by the field commanders, and Gates will return with a new request soon.

This decision -- and the original campaign pledge -- gave many pause about supporting Obama. It doesn't serve the interests of either the United States or Afghanistan. After all, no U.S. "vital national interest" is involved. President George W. Bush chose to use military force as a form of retribution for September 11, 2001. And as long as foreign military forces are in Afghanistan, the Afghan people and government can’t exercise full sovereignty in accord with their traditions.

Nor is this decision a positive development for the U.S. soldiers and Marines expected to pick up the pace of operations in Afghanistan. With the "insurgents" adopting tactics from their Iraqi counterparts, the terrible toll of Iraq will be repeated, indeed compounded, in Afghanistan.

The units to be sent as "down payment" will be two Army Brigade Combat Teams and one of Marines. Originally slated for Iraq, they're going to Afghanistan because security in Iraq has "improved" to the point that fewer U.S. troops are needed there. One unit that had undergone training for deployment to Iraq is already in the process of establishing its base camp in southern Afghanistan.

The Wrong War

Afghanistan isn't the "good war." It's wrong not only for Afghanistan but for U.S. soldiers. Before he agreed to Gates' request, Obama should have paid close attention to three recent developments.

The first was the Army's announcement that once again in 2008, a record number of service members -- 128 -- committed suicide. No Pentagon official was prepared to go on record to discuss the causes of this annual record-setting death toll. Even off-record murmurings were generally confined to the usual financial, personal, legal, and work-related factors. But if one examines the records, what jumps out is the correlation between multiple combat tours (until recently 15 months' duration), the number of cases of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and suicides. Over the last four years, 30% of suicides occurred during deployment and 35% after completing a deployment. As for PTSD among soldiers with multiple tours, the rates of occurrence continue to be substantially higher than among soldiers on their first deployment.

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Daniel Smith is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus, a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. You can contact Dan at dan (at) fcnl (dot) org or reach him at his blog The Quakers' Colonel.

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