14-Oct-09 11:00 AM CST

America cannot afford to lose or retreat from Afghanistan

Earlier this year, President Obama demonstrated a clear understanding of the war in Afghanistan and the security risk it poses to our country. In March, the president said “if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban -- or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged -- that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” The president went on to lay out a strategy to deal with the “greatest threat to our people.”

Recent signals from the White House appear to contradict the president’s remarks earlier this year. Vice President Biden has advocated scaling back forces in Afghanistan. Unless all the news accounts are wrong and the situation in Afghanistan is no longer the “greatest threat” to America, scaling back our troops is not the best course of action.

General Stanley McChrystal, the man President Obama hand-picked to run the war, was asked to provide a thorough review of the situation in Afghanistan. Gen. McChrystal has said he needs an additional 40,000 troops or the war could be lost, putting the United States in danger. We cannot afford to lose or retreat from Afghanistan. As the president said in March, “We have a shared responsibility to act -- not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends on it.”