As his wife and daughters went to bed last Wednesday night, President Obama donned an overcoat and left the White House for Dover Air Force Base. After arriving in the early hours of the morning, the president stood on the tarmac, arm raised in salute, as white-gloved soldiers unloaded the bodies of 18 more Americans killed in Afghanistan. He later spoke with the families of several of the men before returning to Washington shortly before sunrise.
President Obama's trip served as a poignant reminder of the monumental decision he is facing. Two months ago, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal issued a report to the president warning that without additional troops, the war in Afghanistan "will most likely result in failure." In order to regain the upper hand in the country, McChrystal requested as many as 40,000 more troops.
McChrystal's strategy, which hinges on confronting the Taliban in Afghanistan's isolated valleys while providing protection for Taliban leaders who choose to switch sides, has received the backing of much of the American military leadership. In recent weeks, however, one man has challenged the argument that a massive increase in troop levels is the best way to win the war.
That man is Matthew Hoh, who until recently served as the State Department's senior representative in Afghanistan's Zabul Province. While still in that post, Hoh was assigned to answer a question posed by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why, Mullen wanted to know, had the military maintained a presence for years in Afghanistan's remote Korengal Valley, despite suffering a number of casualties there?
A former Marine, the 36-year-old Hoh was brilliantly qualified to research such a question. He had served in the Pentagon, led reconstruction efforts in Iraq, and later fought there with the Marines after being recalled to active duty. In answering Mullen's inquiry, however, Hoh began to question the entire mission in Afghanistan.
Hoh found that the Korengal Valley's insurgents had arrived en masse only after American troops had been deployed. Furthermore, he concluded that most of the fighters had little connection to the Taliban and fought U.S. forces simply to maintain control of their individual valleys.
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