Do you agree with President Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan? Why or why not? What would you do?

As of June 2011, Obama’s plan to withdraw troops was to get the remaining 33,000 troops out of Afghanistan within 15 months. President Obama stated that 10,000 troops would come home in 2011 and 23,000 in 2012. As a democrat I would think that one would want to end the war as fast as possible because isn’t that what they dislike the most? He may blame the war is putting us farther in debt, which it is, but he hasn’t ended it. The fact that in the past year I have actually had a family member be deployed to Afghanistan proves that instead of taking troops out he is sending more in. President Obama has taken troops out of Afghanistan but not the numbers he promised in his election speech four years ago. 

                So if I were to say that I agree with Obama’s plan to withdraw troops, it would be a lie. Granted he was not left with an easy task when Bush left office, but I think there would be better ways of handling the situation. The government makes a big deal about helping the countries get back on their feet, would anyone truthfully help the United States get back on its feet after that kind of situation? Over the history of the United States we have “helped” too many countries which also led us farther into debt, that is the democratic way. His plan that has had our troops stay over there has not bettered the situation and has cost us a little over $1.3 trillion since 2001.

                What would I do is a hard question to answer because I am only 17 and I know little about how the stereotypical war should be handled. To answer the question as best as I can, I would say that when I entered office I would have sent all of the troops and equipment that I could over immediately. We would have then taken over the situation completely and then left the control to the governments. After they established some sort of order we would have packed up and left everyone. Then our hands would have been whipped clean and our spending would be over.