Afghan dilemma for President Obama

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US President Barack Obama has to announced his decision about adding as many as 40,000 troops to Afghanistan to the eight-year-old war. To the uninitiated, there are about 110,000 foreign troops, including 68,000 US soldiers, in Afghanistan fighting Afghan freedom fighters.
Bush had said (and Blair had concurred) that Afghanistan was responsible for the September 11 attacks. They declared war on Afghanistan. The UN conferred upon the war the approving seal of the "entire free world" regardless of whether the rest of the world knew or cared about it. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that prompted many prominent Americans to demand the trial of the warmongers. War crimes are far from over, never mind how unpopular they may be with Americans and the rest of humanity.
But Obama is an honourable man and just so that that is perfectly understood by the entire world they have given him the Nobel Prize for peace. After Obama's "decision" (as if he has any other choice) NATO members will meet on December 7 in Europe to agree to send thousands of additional trainers.
Obama's top national security advisers as well as the Republicans in Congress want him to send those troops. Democrats want him to find a way out of Afghanistan, just like the rest of us but we want it ASAP.
Alleged war criminal former US VP Dick Cheney said recently that Obama was taking too long to decide, that every day that goes by scares away hundreds of supporters from the glorious war effort, not to speak of the negative impact on the troops, most of whom want to go home anyway.
So, what does the result of a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll mean? Forty-six per cent of Americans who supported a large influx of troops to Afghanistan, were ready to go there themselves along with their children, and on short notice too, if there was any shortage of soldiers. This is highly unlikely.
Obama also has to take into account the corruption in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government. Obama wants Karzai and his people to promise not to sell them to the Afghan freedom fighters.
We hope Obama really has the power to decide without any pressure or coercion. Only idiots and madmen believe in the "wars for peace" nonsense. The fuel that powers those wars is greed and hatred and most certainly not justice and brotherhood, as claimed by their progenitors and those who wish to continue their policy.

Abdus Sattar
Khalishpur, Khulna