President Trump’s decision to send thousands more Americans to Afghanistan is a tragic mistake that simply expands the bomb and blast approach that has failed for more than a decade.
The president’s “new” strategy will cost the U.S. more money and result in more deaths of Americans and Afghans. It will not fundamentally improve the day-to-day lives of the Afghan people or alter the long-term prospects of the country or the region.
As Friends, we believe that war is both immoral and ineffective. Rather than pursuing more of the same failed strategy of the last 16 years, FCNL urges Congress to pass legislation putting a stop to the president’s expanding Afghanistan war. Afghanistan today is awash in violence and corruption, and anti-government forces control more territory than they did five years ago. Expanding this strategy will just expand the failures of the last 16 years.
Nearly 16 years after the U.S. invasion, our nation needs to acknowledge that our country cannot solve the problems of Afghanistan – that has to be a task for the people of Afghanistan and the region. But the U.S. can play a more positive role by first dropping our military-first solution and then focusing our energies on political and humanitarian strategies that engage not just the people of Afghanistan, but also the other stakeholders in their region.
The framers of the Constitution gave Congress the ultimate power to decide when and where our country should go to war. It’s time for Congress to take back that constitutional responsibility, start a full debate on the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, and bring our country’s military involvement in this conflict to an end.