No accountability in Afghanistan plan

President Donald Trump’s Monday night policy speech on the direction his administration plans to take in Afghanistan is nothing more than an announcement of continuing the status quo and removing substantial political accountability with it. He declared an end to “nation building” and stated that his government would not announce troop levels and would not bind themselves to “arbitrary deadlines.”

The problem with this first issue is that he fails to understand that the most difficult and arguably most important part of counter insurgency operations is the principle of winning the “hearts and minds.” This is important in the Afghan conflict because we are truly at war with an ideology and less a physical enemy.

Combatants are engaging American soldiers and their Afghan counterparts as a means of seizing political power in the case of the Taliban and a base of operations from which to conduct terrorist attacks in the case of al-Qaida. But it is hard to win public support for a foreign intervention and the government it backs when the sole guiding policy is raining death and destruction from the sky. The Afghan people need to also be assured of the United States' continued commitment to its political stability and economic growth as well as the welfare of its people.

The second issue is that of not announcing troop levels. This is an accountability factor and has no battlefield relevance to an insurgency. The purpose of announcing troop levels is to give the taxpayers and military families an understanding of the depth of our nation’s involvement.

In my opinion, we are working from our Vietnam playbook of fighting an unwinnable war against an ideology that is determined to fight until the bitter end or at least until we run out of money.

Corey Phillippi West Jefferson