This Sunday, Sen. Jim Webb will appear on “Meet the Press” on NBC to discuss U.S. policy in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, Sen. Webb has emphasized that the Obama administration’s review of U.S. policies in Afghanistan must contain clear and attainable objectives with a defined and understandable endpoint and warned that the United States runs the risk of being perceived as an occupying force.
Responding to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations, Sen. Webb stated that, “we have reached a turning point in Afghanistan as to whether we are going to formally adopt nation-building as a policy.”
Similarly, during a Sept. 15 Armed Services Committee hearing with Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Webb called for a vigorous debate on America’s future military presence in Afghanistan. Webb emphasized that any new U.S. strategy must be “valid and achievable, and must have attainable goals that are clearly articulated—to our side, to the other side, and to the American people. These goals must also have an understandable endpoint so that we know when we are done, particularly in a military sense.”
Sen. Webb has also questioned the wisdom of fighting international terrorism through the construction of large military structures such as those that have been used in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, pointing out that in strategic terms, the billions of dollars spent on such positions tend to tie down U.S. forces, to the advantage of international terrorist units that remain mobile. He cited the departure of Al-Qaeda from Iraq as an example, and instead favored “highly maneuverable forces against an intrinsically mobile enemy.”
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