Time to finish the job in Afghanistan
THERE WERE 30 ships under my command during the war in Afghanistan - 20 from allied nations, including Greece, Germany and Australia.
THERE WERE 30 ships under my command during the war in Afghanistan - 20 from allied nations, including Greece, Germany and Australia.
There were even Japanese ships, conducting one of that nation's first deployments outside its waters since World War II.
The world was with us in our struggle against the terrorists who struck on 9/11 from their havens in Afghanistan and the border region of Pakistan.
But when the battle group left the Indian Ocean for the Persian Gulf and Iraq, only the ships from the U.K. and Australia sailed with us, and I knew we were making a tragic mistake. We shifted attention and resources away from the real front lines of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Now, according to a National Intelligence Estimate, there's an "emboldened" Afghan insurgency, a government whose authority is deteriorating, and a country on a "downward spiral" into chaos.
In 2007, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Congress that "in Afghanistan, we do what we can, in Iraq, we do what we must." Those priorities spelled disaster for the fight against al Qaeda, and I commend President Obama for turning the focus of the United States and the world back to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Our renewed efforts don't come without cost. July marked the deadliest month for coalition forces in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. It's understandable that many Americans are wary of our continued, escalating involvement in this complex and long-running conflict.
But the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region is and always has been the central front in the war against terror and it has emerged as a safe haven for al Qaeda. We must summon the leadership and resolve necessary to deny solace or sanctuary to the terrorists who struck us on 9/11.
The Afghan people have gone to the polls, and the results are trickling in. A stable Afghanistan will contribute to the security of its nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan. Both nations form a single strategic theater, and both face a common threat from insurgents and extremists.
We have to make the necessary commitments of troops and economic aid, but we owe the American people clear benchmarks to define success and a sound exit strategy to bring our soldiers home when it's achieved.
Recently, Richard Holbrooke, envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said of success in the region: "We'll know it when we see it."
Such a mind-set is unacceptable. Our strategy must adapt to circumstance, but our goal should be resolute: stable governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan that don't harbor violent extremists. In this mission, the president has called for clear-cut metrics, and it's up to us in Congress to demand them from our civilian and military leaders.
The development of the national security strategy of engagement that I oversaw as director for defense policy at President Bill Clinton's National Security Council demanded that our commitments not be open-ended, operations not be conducted without clear benchmarks for success or failure, and we not enter a conflict without a clear exit strategy. That's why I've co-sponsored legislation to require the secretary of Defense to give Congress a military exit strategy for Afghanistan.
Even with the proper military strategies, manpower alone is never the answer. Many Afghanis join the Taliban and other extremist groups simply because it is the only way to earn a living.
Progress is already being made on the economic front through initiatives like the National Solidarity Program, a micro-finance program that provides funding for small-scale developmental projects in nearly every district in Afghanistan.
It helps establish allegiance to the central government, which administers it, by distributing loans for village infrastructure, and helps provide an impoverished people alternatives to extremism or the drug trade. This is exactly the kind of strategic economic effort we need, which is why I voted last month to appropriate $175 million for it.
In the months to come, having committed additional manpower and undertaken new operations, casualties among coalition forces in Afghanistan are likely to rise. But with the right strategy of focused military effort and a long-term economic partnership with our allies, we can finally strike the decisive blow against the terrorists who attacked us eight years ago.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak is a former admiral and a 2010 candidate for the U.S. Senate.