Obama Or McCain: One War Or Another

Opinion

It's clear that regardless of who becomes President in the next election, the United States will still be involved in at least one expensive foreign war. For McCain, Iraq continues to be the main focus of the War On Terror. For Obama, the war in Afghanistan is the righteous one. He'll divert troops and resources from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan.

I think both candidates are missing the point. Lengthy engagements in either country or both will not aid the average American. Americans are fighting for their economic lives in a way that hasn't been seen in decades. Higher energy costs, a weak dollar, a global credit crisis, and a weakened international image are to blame. The fact that our country will need to continue to pay the costs of large standing armies in foreign countries serving dubious goals for indeterminate periods of time is unthinkable to many.

Now we see Democrats positioning the two wars as The Good War in Afghanistan and the Bad War in Iraq. I don't see it that way. Why exactly are conflicts in either Aghanistan or Iraq vital to the interests of the average American? Certainly the war on terror can't be a good enough excuse anymore. We've had exactly no major terrorist attacks on our soil since 9-11, and it's tough to see how the ragtag forces of the Taliban or Al Qaeda can even merit this kind of global military attention.

There's no question the U.S. military is under great strain due to the long running conflicts in the Middle East. The type of service duties modern fighting personnel are seeing are unheard of, and the strain on their families is at a breaking point. Why move these poor soldiers from one engagement to another, with no defined timetable for withdrawal and no clear cut military mission outlined. It's hogwash.

Since Obama has tried so hard to establish a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq, it's hard to imagine he can get a pass for moving those troops to Afghanistan and not setting a timetable for their withdrawal from that country. This smacks of hypocrisy at a time when our nation can ill afford such actions from our leaders.

Maybe it's time to end the foreign wars for the immediate future. The billions of dollar that have already been poured into these two far-flung countries should be enough for the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq to stand on their own. They survived long before we ever meddled in their affairs, and they'll survive long after we're gone. Let the U.S. military regroup. Let military families regain a sense of order in their lives. And let our nation regain our equilibrium in a world that has increasingly grown weary of American threats and promises.

Both McCain and Obama are offering nothing new when it comes to foreign policy, especially considering the amount of noise they've both made about change. Both of them would have our country engaged in while our own economic superpower status slips. Once elected on promises of extending war, what assurance do we have that these candidates will lead us away from our failed policies of strong-arming Democracy to the world? I see nothing to indicate that anything will change significantly, regardless of who becomes our next President.

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