Obamas Speech on Afghanistan

Barack Obama’s speech about our involvement in Afghanistan was very straightforward, and informed the American people by laying out the facts. Our reasons for being involved in Afghanistan are: prevent the Taliban from taking over the government, to break Al-Qaida’s momentum, and to train leaders in Afghanistan to protect the civilians and security of the country. These main points were then followed by Barack Obama’s plan to resolve these issues. The plan is to take military action by sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan by early 2010. The reason for doing so is to break the Taliban’s momentum and increase Afghanistan’s way of ruling themselves in a safe environment. The key to America’s success is when our troop’s transition out of Afghanistan, back home, but Afghanis can stand on their own two feet to lead themselves and be secure while doing so. The Afghanistan people can only be safe though when the Taliban and Al-Qaida has been successfully repressed, which is part of Barack Obama’s plan. Once this has been accomplished and the Afghanis are leading themselves, they also need to take full responsibility for their actions, which will hopefully lead to a partnership between the U.S. and Afghanistan.
Another topic that Barack touched on was American values. He states that we must go back and remember the heart of our values, even though we face different challenges in the world today than previous ones. Values such as opportunity and respect for others have been the core of our values, and will remain no matter how different occurring challenges may be today. While our values play a huge role in our decision making as a country, we must remember our legacy. The U.S. has always strayed away from dominating another country or place, and Barack Obama made a strong point about this situation. We aren’t in Afghanistan to dominate them, but to help build them into a stronger nation. We have fought against domination (WWII) before, and we continue this trend today to have a brighter future for the better of our country, and children.