A letter to the Globe on drawdown plans

On Saturday, June 25th, WAND's intern Alana Eichner had a letter to the editor printed in the Boston Globe in response to President Obama's drawdown plan. The letter can be found here, or read below.

Fiscal irresponsibility is at the heart of her opposition to war

RE “OBAMA outlines Afghan drawdown’’ (Page A1, June 23): As a 20-year-old college student and political activist, I care about ending this war because this country’s future is my future. I was only 10 on Sept. 11, 2001, and am of a generation of young people for whom our country has been at war almost our entire lives.

Yet at the heart of my opposition to the war is its fiscal irresponsibility. As someone who has begun earning enough money to pay taxes, I have a stake in how my money is being spent.

It is time to responsibly and quickly end the war in Afghanistan. I commend President Obama’s efforts to secure a lasting peace there as well as his announcement that 33,000 troops will be brought home by the summer of 2012. However, I am disappointed that the president will not end the war sooner, and that there will still be 68,000 service men and women in Afghanistan.

When Obama said that it was “time to focus on nation-building here at home,’’ I thought of the students I know who need more federal money to make college affordable and the young people who are graduating into an uncertain job market. It is investment in these and other important priorities, such as the environment, infrastructure, and public education, that I want my tax dollars to fund.

As Obama charts our future course in Afghanistan, I encourage him to think about what kind of nation he wants to build for the young people of today.

Alana Eichner
Somerville