After nearly a decade, the White House has made its decision to finally begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Obama made the announcement the evening of Wednesday, June 22. It's about time.
It would be untrue to say that at the beginning of this war, many opposed it. The fact of the matter is, the American people were pretty gung-ho about it all.
It was right after the September 11 attacks, and patriotism swept the country like an epidemic.
Pro-America songs were written, American flags were flown on nearly every lawn, and George W. Bush was wildly popular, even snagging a re-election.
We got Saddam, and we got Osama. A regime was toppled, and America did her job, but her troops didn't come home.
This is long overdue. Obama will begin by the withdrawal of at least 5,000 military personnel initially, and plans to pull out another 5,000 over the next few months.
The hopes are that by the end of next year, 30,000 of our troops will be home, leaving about 70,000 troops in Afghanistan. Obviously, we can't just take them all out at once.
However, this is still much too slow. We didn't need 100,000 troops to find Osama. A twenty-man SEAL team, not an invasion of thousands of soldiers, killed him.
Taxpayer dollars have been funding an overdrawn war.
"The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost the taxpayers at least $1.3 trillion. The U.S. will spend $120 billion in Afghanistan alone this year," said the Talk Radio News Service.
The United States currently has a $1.4 trillion deficit and $14.3 trillion national debt, and it's only growing every day there are troops stationed overseas.
I don't want to keep funding a forgone war. The withdrawal of troops should have started years ago when they found Saddam.
We're still suffering from Bush's war. What happened to Obama's campaign promises of ending this? Yes, he's getting around to it, but years later.
While American citizens fund this war, the cost still continues to rise by the second. Go check out the United States on costofwar.com. There is no reason for that.
Times are hard. We're in the middle of an economic crisis. We have been since 2008.
It's gotten better, but it hasn't been fixed. Continuing the war this long was not the way to improve it.
Since 2008, the rate of inflation has risen from .1% to 3.6% this year. As of May, consumer prices had risen .2%, and the cost of food also went up. The unemployment rate is not as high as it was in past years, but it is on the rise again, resting at 9.1%. The cost of living is increasing, yet government spending on the war is staying the same.
This is going to take a while. It's going to stretch over a few years, but at least Obama finally backed up his words with actions.
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