HONOLULU, Hawaii - Here, where President Barack Obama spent formative years, there is a beautiful memorial cemetery where soldiers from many wars lie. In huge letters there is a quotation from a letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to a grieving mother.
"The solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom," the president wrote to Mrs. Bixby, who lost five sons in the Civil War.
Obama knows that memorial well, and it must weigh heavily on his heart as he decides what steps next to take in Afghanistan.
With two sons in the Army, I am trying to be objective and dispassionate about what surely is the most momentous decision before the president right now. It is not easy. But there are no easy answers to the muddle that is Afghanistan.
I have to admit that I have been leaning to Vice President Joe Biden's argument that the greater threat is Pakistan, with nuclear weapons and a volatile political climate, harboring Al Qaeda in its vast mountains. The Russians and the British before us found no victory in the bleak deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, with its warring, nomadic tribes and dependence on illegal drug trading.
Biden argues for using drones to attack Al Qaeda camps along with Special Forces and repositioning U.S. forces to train Afghan soldiers but not providing a surge. It is a strong argument.
After eight years of a U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, its weak, would-be central government is clearly corrupt, the Taliban is resurgent, American lives are being lost at an ever-higher rate and there is no end in sight. The American people are weary of this long, dreary, costly war. The idea that you dishonor those who have died by cutting your losses and leaving seems a weak argument.
And yet Obama is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan and escalating the fighting. That is the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a respected four-star officer appointed by the president to give advice on how to win the war.
No general wants to see more of his soldiers die. And McChrystal has made clear his abhorrence of civilian deaths. But McChrystal has told Obama that there should be 60,000 more Americans fighting in Afghanistan, in addition to the 62,000 there now (and another 40,000 from other countries). "Success takes time," he is quoted as telling Afghans. He believes he can turn the quagmire in Afghanistan around if he has the resources and the backing of the politicians.
He believes by putting more soldiers and Marines in heavily populated areas, he can lure, fight and even win over insurgents. He also believes that success in Afghanistan will mean a more stable Pakistan. He believes Americans can distance themselves from the corrupt Afghan government and win over the Afghan people.
And that is a powerful argument. Having shown the Afghan people a glimpse of a future where girls go to school and people are safe to pursue their daily lives, how do we abandon the Afghans to the vengeful Taliban again?
MyChrystal's plan is a huge gamble, one that Obama thus far has been unsure about taking. Indeed, his options are poor while the stakes are enormous. Already, the pundits are calling Afghanistan "Obama's war."
There is a growing belief that whatever we do about Afghanistan will be wrong -- pull out, dig in, beef up. Worse, Obama so far has failed to show us that he knows what to do, is decisive enough to do it and persuasive enough to tell us what our path must be. It is a heavy burden, but under our system there is no one else to do it. The whole world is watching him.
To walk among the graves here in Hawaii is to revisit the incredible heroism of America's fallen -- in World War I, in World War II, in Korea, in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan.
To walk among the quiet graves here is to see the future and to know for certain that there will be more grieving Mrs. Bixbys.
(Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986. E-mail amcfeatters@nationalpress.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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