Posted by U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan is drawing mixed reactions from people around the nation’s capital. VOA sampled views in the Washington area, including the opinions of some Afghan immigrants.
Farid Hashimi is the manager of an Afghan restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. He came to the United States in 1989 and is one of an estimated 250,000 Afghans living in the United States. He says President Obama is making the right decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.
“If Mr. Obama had not done that the Taliban would come back in power. The Taliban like we see now on the news is very strong,” he said.
This man who said his name is Assad came from Afghanistan 30 years ago. He says he’s glad 30,000 additional U.S. troops are headed there. But he doesn’t want to see U.S. forces pull out in the middle of 2011 unless the country is stable.
Assad says says he’s glad 30,000 additional U.S. troops are headed to Afghanistan.“It was already done once during the Russian war. They turned their back on Afghanistan. If we do that again and if it is not fixed by that time, unfortunately it will be another mistake,” he said.
Another Afghan immigrant, Jawad Sultni, says President Obama’s new war strategy is only a short term solution.
“In order to make sure we have a peaceful country we have to have education because we are a country of less than one percent educated people,” Sultni said. “So education is the answer, improving the economy is the answer not having guns in the streets of Afghanistan.”
There’s no shortage of opinion – both for an against Mr. Obama’s war plans – in the Washington area.
