Re “The Tenacity Question,” by David Brooks (column, Oct. 30):

The issue is not whether President Obama is stubborn enough to stick to an earlier ill-advised judgment that the United States could and should do whatever might be necessary to “win” the war in Afghanistan.

Rather, the question is does he have the courage to take the political risks, the inevitable angry roar of denunciations he will receive if he decides to scale back our military involvement in that tragically ungovernable collection of tribal fiefs (that no power in a long history has ever been able to unify or subdue) and get out as quickly as possible.

The reality is that the mass of Afghans see us as just another foreign army of occupation — taking part in an unending civil war that nobody is going to “win.” Certainly not the United States.

Landrum Bolling
Washington, Oct. 30, 2009

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To the Editor:

The question is not whether President Obama has the tenacity of Churchill or Lincoln, but rather is waging war in Afghanistan in our national interest. I think not.

Afghanistan is a strategic war of choice, not the wars of national survival that Churchill and Lincoln led.

There may indeed be persuasive arguments for this strategic war, but the question should not be put to the military or to counterinsurgency experts. We do, of course, have real national interests in containing Islamist transnational terrorism and in a stable Pakistan, but again, this is a different question whose answer will not be found in propping up the corrupt Karzai cabal.

Richard Gordon
Berkeley, Calif., Oct. 30, 2009

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To the Editor:

David Brooks’s column seems to presume that a military solution in Afghanistan is appropriate. This is also prevalent among those who wage war for a living — whether fighting or building and selling armaments.

The military requests what it requires to achieve military objectives, whether those objectives resolve greater problems or not. That’s tactical — and that’s the military’s job.

The president’s job is to carefully weigh our national interests and then order the tactics necessary to achieve them. It is refreshing to have a president actually invest time and intellectual effort, circumspectly formulating a plan of action and not just surrounding himself with “the smartest military experts” or “retired officers.”

If the solution truly is military, so be it. If not, we shouldn’t send our kids off to die for it. Tenacity is appropriate only when one is on a proper course — not heading toward a cliff.

David L. Wolf
Waterford, Mich., Oct. 30, 2009

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To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman has it exactly right in “Don’t Build Up” (column, Oct. 28). Supposedly, our choice in Afghanistan is to conquer or pacify. If the decision is to conquer, 40,000 more troops are obviously insufficient (maybe 400,000), but no general will ever give an honest answer as to how many are needed after what happened to Gen. Eric Shinseki at the start of the Iraq war.

On the other hand, trying to pacify may be an impossible task, requiring forever to accomplish at an enormous expense. This is a tribal country where ties to a tribe are more important than any tie to a community.

As the column points out, “people do not change when we tell them they should.” Trying to break up tribes will be impossible, and any attempt to do so will only strengthen the Taliban. It is far better to let the Afghan people eliminate the Taliban, because it is in their best interest to do so, than for us to try to do it by brute force or by appeasement.

We can only lose by staying in Afghanistan for any longer than it takes us to extract our forces, who are already seen as occupiers. In the long run, we will be much better able to stabilize our own country and economy without having to try to remake the world in our image.

L. R. Jeffrey
Fort Myers, Fla., Oct. 29, 2009

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To the Editor:

Thomas L. Friedman argues, “We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.”

The prestige of the United States and its allies is on the line in Afghanistan. Having committed to a “war of necessity,” President Obama has a duty and responsibility to follow the advice of his hand-picked general, Stanley A. McChrystal, to supply the general with an additional 40,000 troops or risk failure.

President Obama owes it to the Afghan people to make it clear that we and our allies will not leave or draw down any troops until the Taliban has been totally defeated. Mr. Obama also owes it to the American people that Afghanistan will never again become a sanctuary for Osama bin Laden from which to plan another strike against the United States homeland.

Paul Schoenbaum
Williamsburg, Va., Oct. 28, 2009

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To the Editor:

Re “More Schools, Not Troops” (column, Oct. 29):

Nicholas D. Kristof feels that dispatching more troops to Afghanistan would be a bad bet, and it’s easy to agree with him.

President Obama should look back on the Soviet Union’s failing decadelong attempt to conquer Afghanistan. The topography alone is a formidable hazard for invaders to have second thoughts.

Back off, Mr. Obama. The money saved could well be used to take care of health care, our jobless and homeless.

Jack E. Cohen
Hewlett, N.Y., Oct. 29, 2009