President Barack Obama’s plan to increase troop levels in Afghanistan is seen by many as a bold move in this his first year in office. At the United States Military Academy training facility at West Point, NY on Dec 1, 2009, in his address to the nation, the President outlined why he needed to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan within the first quarter of 2010.

The plan, he said, is that the troop surge would ensure three main objectives: Al Qaeda would no longer find a safe haven in Afghanistan; reverse the momentum of the Taliban, who are a constant threat to the people of Afghanistan; and strengthen the security forces in Afghanistan.

As a justification for his decision regarding the situation in Afghanistan, “The status quo is not sustainable,” he announced, and said that he is “convinced that our [America’s] security is at stake in Afghanistan.”

In his description to the nation of the situation in Afghanistan as “the epicenter of violent extremism,” the President’s plan contained a hefty list of unexplained goals, which included the absence of a timescale and the accelerated number of troops, both of which mimic the conditions that existed with the invasion of Iraq. On Mar 20, 2003 when former president George W. Bush announced the invasion of Iraq, two goals were made clear: to pull Saddam Hussein out of power and to uncover any weapons of mass destruction. Now President Obama wants to make sure the Taliban does