Although American soldiers have been involved in Afghanistan and Iraq for many years, many Americans still don't really understand what we are doing there, what we are trying to accomplish, why we are taking some regrettable casualties almost every day, and how many billions of dollars those wars are costing us.
Shouldn't our leaders give the American people some clear, concise, pointed explanations, spelling out our goals and expectations, telling us exactly what we are trying to avoid?
There are roughly 68,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan and about 120,000 in Iraq, with speculation that President Barack Obama may send more troops to Afghanistan very soon.
In World War II, we knew where the "front lines" were in Europe. We were determined to liberate Paris and other occupied areas, and defeat and destroy Nazi Germany.
Also in World War II, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made it unmistakably clear to all Americans why we were in the Pacific war and what we had to do.
With challenges and objectives clear, we did what we had to do to win.
Vietnam was an example of the opposite. We were enmeshed there for years against Communists, pulling punches while our losses mounted, and then we finally pulled out.
Our leaders now need to tell us some things very specifically: What are we going to do by staying in Afghanistan and Iraq -- and facing the threats along border areas in adjacent Pakistan? What are our objectives? What would happen if we left? Is the cost worth the potential gain, or the potential loss such that we cannot consider it? What would U.S. success look like? How can we gain it?
There obviously are no immediate solutions. But there are pointed questions that our leaders should explain to the American people.
We knew our objectives in World War II and accomplished them. We unfortunately do not have that clarity now.
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Maybe it's because our "leaders" don't know what they're doing with anything these days.
Mark Steyn states: "...a year after the fall of Baghdad, Democrats adopted the line that GWB's war in Iraq was an unnecessary distraction from the real war, the good war, the one in Afghanistan that everyone-Democrats, Europeans, all the nice people-were right behind, 100 per cent...No one butched up for the Khyber Pass more enthusiastically than Mr. Obama: "As president, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority." (July 15, 2008).
He goes on to state what most true conservatives (not sit on the fence mods-left) believe: "There are legitimate questions about our war aims in Afghanistan and about the strategy necessary to achieve them. But eight years after being toppled, the Taliban will see their return to power as a great victory over the Great Satan, and so will the angry young men from Toronto to Yorkshire to Chechnya to Indonesia who graduated from Afghanistan's Camp Jihad during the 1990's...Mr. Obama will have history's most crowded trophy room, but his presidency is shaping up as a tragedy-for America and the world." Truer words cannot be spoken on this issue.