Americans are facing a dangerous situation with the war in Afghanistan, and students at the University of New Mexico need to be part of the national dialogue. History has shown that the American public tends to respond to military interventions overseas in one of three predictable ways.
The first response, when a war is going poorly, is isolationism — or what its supporters like to call “non-interventionism.” This message of “it’s time to bring the troops home” tends to resonate on liberal university campuses but fails to take into account the interconnected nature of national security challenges that we face in the 21st century.
The second response in a post-9/11 world is excessive anti-terrorism, which replaced the excessive anti-communism that was so prevalent during the Cold War. This entails the aggressive application of unilateral military force with little regard for the potential long-term consequences of a protracted ground war. The war in Vietnam was sold on the premise that we were fighting communism and failure in Vietnam would result in a domino effect with disastrous consequences for Southeast Asia. As it turned out, the domino effect was a false presumption just as weapons of mass destruction were a false pretext used to sell the Iraq War to the American public. Supporters of excessive anti-terrorism tend to be nationalistic and suffer from group thinking.
The third response is what political scientists call liberal interventionism. Plainly put, this means using the American military to launch nation-building campaigns overseas to promote American values such as democracy, human rights and free markets. Nation-building sometimes succeeds and sometimes fails — it’s a roll of the dice.
None of these traditional approaches will work in Afghanistan. Isolationism won’t work because Afghanistan shares a fluid border with Pakistan — a potentially unstable regime with poorly secured nuclear weapons. American withdrawal from Afghanistan would strengthen the Taliban and likely lead to extremist elements securing nuclear weapons and using them on American or allied soil. Excessive anti-terrorism won’t work because of the need to launch a campaign marked by military precision and winning hearts and minds. This war has to be fought village to village in mountainous terrain with boots on the ground and sound judgment, rather than reckless ideology that overstretches our military and destabilizes Pakistan. Liberal interventionism won’t work because no military force since Alexander the Great has managed to successfully occupy Afghanistan and engage in nation building. The country is worse than a quagmire — it’s a death trap that has defeated every foreign force arrogant enough to defy human history.
President Obama has outlined a military strategy that avoids the pitfalls outlined above and every student at UNM needs to support continued military efforts in Afghanistan. Thirty thousand additional American soldiers are being deployed to complete a narrowly defined mission: To disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida and its extremist allies.
There will be those who criticize the President for taking too long to reach a decision, not sending enough soldiers and setting a time line for withdrawal.
Personally I prefer a faster and more robust military response with withdrawal dictated by the situation on the ground, but the important thing is that we are moving in the right direction. Democrats need to recognize that this is not another Vietnam; this is a war of necessity, and we must press forward.
Republicans need to recognize that pouncing on the President over Afghanistan for political gain is dangerous. We need to strengthen his resolve and ensure that isolationists do not succeed in cutting off funding to our soldiers.
The bottom line is that the presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan mandates national unity in the war in Afghanistan. We cannot afford to fail in Afghanistan, or retribution may come in the form of a mushroom cloud. Public opinion is the only political force powerful enough to stop the American military from succeeding and students at UNM are part of the political process. We need to act like adults and recognize that failure is not an option here. We may disagree on the details of President Obama’s recently outlined strategy, but politics need to stop at the ocean’s edge when nuclear weapons are involved. We have to stick together on the issue of Afghanistan, regardless of domestic political interests to safeguard our families. Our voices, as demonstrated by the last election, matter and we cannot succumb to petty partisanship on this issue. It’s time to put country first, set aside party identification, and support the war in Afghanistan.
UNM student Eric McInteer co-hosts a conservative AM talk-radio show called “Framers of the Future” on 1050 KTBL on Saturdays at 8 a.m.
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