The Courageous Decision

President Obama must make a decision soon on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. The most courageous decision he can make is to just say NO.

The Republicans will scream bloody murder, but I would rather have them screaming in Washington than some young American kid dying in Afghanistan.  We can defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda without sending more troops.

We didn’t invade Afghanistan to rebuild their country. We invaded because the Taliban would not turn  Osama bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda over to us. We wanted to deny Al Qaeda a training ground and a safe place to plot against us. What do you think they have been doing in Pakistan for the past eight years? Do you think they have been waiting to get back into Afghanistan to train and plot against us? Of course not. An imaginary line in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan did not stop Al Qaeda from doing anything.

Let’s fight the most primitive means of warfare, suicide bombers and roadside bombs, with the greatest technology that the world has ever seen. Let’s use our overwhelming, unopposed, superior, air power to defeat the Taliban.

In “To Beat the Taliban, Fight from Afar” in the October 14, 2009  New York Times, Robert A. Pape suggests that we rely on air and naval power from a distance and work with local security forces on the ground. That’s how we beat the Taliban in 2001. We had some troops on the
ground, but we mainly worked with local Afghan fighters by providing air strikes against the Taliban. The Taliban may be able to survive underground in caves in Pakistan, but large groups of them out in the open, whether at night or during the day, are toast.

We have Reapers and Predators, unmanned aircraft that are operated remotely from bases in the United States. The assembly lines should be running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week making these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We certainly have enough laid off auto workers that they could be put to good use building UAVs to defend America, our ground forces and the ground forces of our Allies and friends. Let General McChrystal have all the UAVs he wants.

The November 2009 issue of Esquire magazine has an article by Brian Mockenhaupt called, “We’ve Seen The Future and It’s Unmanned.” Here is a quote from the article: “An F-16 burns a thousand gallons of fuel an hour and can stay over a target for about an hour before it must swap out with another plane or refuel midair. A Predator carries a hundred gallons of fuel with which it can stay over a target for twenty-four hours.”

Arizona Senator John McCain said that if President Obama didn’t send the 40,000 troops requested by General McChrystal it would be an “error of historic proportions.” He also said that more troops were “vitally needed” in Afghanistan and that any delay in ordering more combat forces to the fight would put American lives at risk. He will probably lead the criticism of the president if he says no.

Frank Rich wrote a column for the NY Times called, “Two Wrongs Make Another Fiasco.” It documents all the different ways that Senator McCain has been wrong since September 11, 2001. McCain has been wrong on just about everything.

Vice President Joe Biden doesn’t want the president to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan either. He supports using UAVs and Special Forces to target Al Qaeda in Pakistan and letting the Afghans take over their own security. I’m with Joe.

What happened to all of the Afghans who fought the Taliban in 2001? Where are they now? Let’s invite 40,000 of them to defend their own country again. If we fight with local Afghan forces on the ground, they should be covered by an umbrella of massive fire power from unmanned drones and whatever other air power our military thinks is necessary.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote a column on September 21, 2009 called, “The Hard and Bitter Truth.” He doesn’t want the president to send more troops either.

We should use all of the technology that we have to stop the Taliban and Al Qaeda from operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but we shouldn’t send more troops. Why should our soldiers have to die because the Taliban and Al Qaeda want to live in the 12th Century?

As Robert A. Pope says, “To Beat the Taliban, Let’s Fight From Afar.” May I suggest, “Kill them from a distance?”

President Obama, be courageous and just say NO!

Remembering September 11, 2001

Jeffrey Goldberg wrote an interesting article in The New York Times September 9, 2008 called, On Nov. 4, Remember 9/11. He says the most important thing the next president must do is prevent terrorists from detonating a nuclear device in the United States. It started me thinking about that day. I always thought that unlocked cockpit doors allowed the terrorists to hijack the planes . If we had locked the doors, they would not have been able to kill the cockpit crews and takeover the planes. I didn’t know that the doors probably were locked, but that one or more flight attendants had a key or access to one. The 9/11 Commission Report on page 5 says: ” We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight. Ong speculated that they had “jammed their way” in. Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.”

An article on the website Edwardjayepstein.com says “To avoid the risk of issuing tens of thousands (of keys) to flight attendants, major airlines, in accordance with the FAA/NTSB recommendation, put cockpit keys for the flight attendants in the first class compartment in containers near cockpit doors. As a “back-up”, also in accordance with another FAA/ NTSB recommendation, they gave flight attendants pre- arranged knocking codes to summon the pilots to open the door.” It sounds like hiding a key under the front door mat to me.

“On El Al flights, bulletproof cockpit doors remain locked from boarding until the last passenger has disembarked. It’s a simple requirement that ensures no terrorist can gain access to the controls”, according to an August 25, 2003 article in BusinessWeek. An El Al plane has not been successfully hijacked since 1968, 40 years ago.  A hijacking was attempted in 1970. El Al security officers on the plane, while in the air, shot and killed one hijacker and took the other into custody. The plane landed safely.

We made it too easy for the hijackers. If the cockpit doors were locked and secure, those evil, misguided, poor excuses for human beings, would not have been able to use the planes as weapons. Their mission would have failed and they would either be in prison or dead.

I’m certain we are not doing enough to inspect all of the cargo containers that come into this country. Every single container coming into this country should be inspected before it enters an American port and at a safe enough distance so that if it does contain a nuclear device, it won’t kill millions of people. Tax each container to pay for its inspection. It should be part of the cost of importing all that stuff from China and it will make American made goods more competitive. Figure out how to do it. Don’t tell me it can’t be done or it’s too expensive. We put a man on the moon, remember? Do it now. It’s already 7 years too late.

That is also why we need to secure our borders. We need to know who and what is coming and going. A secure border is also 7 years too late. We don’t need to build a brick wall around the country. We need to build a wall with our technology.

In his Democratic Convention speech, Barack Obama said, “John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.” Obama meant that bin Laden has been living in Pakistan for the past 7 years and we haven’t done enough to kill him.  Bush has been playing games with the government of Pakistan instead of going after bin Laden. Read “Right at the Edge“, by Dexter Filkins in the New York Times Magazine. We ignored the Taliban prior to 9/11/01. We attacked them and drove them out of Afghanistan after 9/11, but didn’t follow them into Pakistan and defeat them. We have attacked them there with Predators recently, but they appear to be prospering nicely. They are way too comfortable.

Bush said, shortly after 9/11,”We’re going to find those evildoers, those barbaric people who attacked our country, and we’re going to hold them accountable. We’re going to hold the people who house them accountable. The people who think they can provide them safe havens will be held accountable. The people who feed them will be held accountable. And the Taliban must take my statement seriously.”

Remember “Wanted: Dead or Alive?” Where is Osama bin Laden?

We citizens of the United States are lucky to have so many courageous soldiers and smart, dedicated leaders in our military. We have no right to ask them to sacrifice so much with one hand tied behind their back. If bin Laden is in Pakistan, let’s go get him. I have said, at least a few times over the past 7 years, that I won’t believe we are serious about defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda until there are so many Predators flying over the Afghan-Pakistani border area that they are stacked up like planes landing at Newark Airport on a snowy day and birds can’t fly.

I’m voting for Barack Obama. You should too.