More troops in Afghanistan? Risking even more than the 100,000 soliders (60,000 Americans) already in Afghanistan? Of course this sounds bad. Maybe it could help, but the reality is that we shouldn't risk it.

I am not a war commander. I suck at Risk. I don't even like to confront people in everyday life (how was I ever a teacher?!). So ok, I don't know "war strategies" or "how to find Bin Laden", but the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, does, and he said "What I'm really telling people is the greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here... If the people are against us, we cannot be successful. If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can't be successful and our casualties will go up dramatically." Many people in Afghanistan are already angry at us. How would adding to the number of troops win their hearts?

Luckily, Obama's got my back. He has said he is skeptical about sending more soldiers, and says he wants to be sure the current strategy is correct first. This makes me hopeful. I am hoping that there will be another solution besides making more soldiers go to Afghanistan.

According to the New York Times, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s troop request, which was submitted to the Pentagon on Friday, has reignited a longstanding debate within the military about the virtues of the counterinsurgency strategy popularized by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq and now embraced by General McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan.  But we aren't done with Iraq. Weren't we supposed to be out of there by now? To me, it doesn't sound like the surge worked, so we shouldn't jeopardize any more lives or take any more soldiers away from their families to put them in Afghanistan. Many of Obama's advisers are even split on the issue, and if they are undecided, they should err on the side of caution and not send the troops. Right now, sending them in would seem to place a lot less importance on the individual lives of the soldiers involved.

With so many soldiers already over there, and with all the anti-U.S. sentiment already brewing, I think we need less troops and more empowering the people of Afghanistan to run their own country. As a former teacher, I know that you can't do these things for them - you have to teach them how to do it on their own. Putting 10 teachers in a classroom is not going to teach those kids any better. At some point, you are just wasting very valuable resources.

Sources

U.S. must win Afghan hearts and minds, commander says, CNN .

More Troops Sought in Afghanistan, BBC News.

Advisers to Obama are split on Afghan troop request, The New York Times.