Make Afghan footprint bigger

Those who believe that President Obama should ignore Vice President Biden's advice about a "small footprint" and give Gen. Stanley McChrystal additional troops to complete the administration's mission in Afghanistan have been slow to make one of the strongest arguments: More means less.

That is, sending more troops likely means less risk for the troops already there. Currently, there are about 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and McChrystal has recommended that Obama send more - perhaps as many as 40,000 - to help carry out a counterinsurgency strategy.

So I was glad that Sen. Dianne Feinstein cited the issue of protecting the troops while supporting a surge during a recent appearance on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I don't know how you put somebody in who was as crackerjack as General McChrystal, who gives the president very solid recommendations, and not take those recommendations," Feinstein said. "If you don't want to take the recommendations, then you ... put your people in such jeopardy, just like the base in Nurestan. We lost eight of our men. We didn't have the ability to defend them."

The senator was referring to the Oct. 3 assault on two Afghan-U.S. outposts near the Pakistani border by what the military says were 300 enemy fighters representing multiple extremist groups. In addition to the American deaths, four Afghan soldiers were killed.

You have to wonder why Feinstein's point hasn't been made more often in this debate. Those who urge a pullout, or a scaling down of U.S. forces, or even maintaining current troop levels but with a greater reliance on unmanned Predator aircraft - basically any kind of reversal of policy - like to portray themselves as more sensitive than their opponents to the loss of American lives.

But what about the lives of those 66,000 U.S. troops who are already on the ground in Afghanistan and who could use some reinforcements? Who is going to bat for them while Obama mulls his options? No one but McChrystal.

Feinstein's remarks brought to mind an e-mail I got a few months ago that has stuck with me ever since. It was from the father of a Marine who hoped that Obama would ignore McChrystal's request and instead start looking for an exit from in Afghanistan. He feared that his son might soon be headed to into that war zone.

I would be just as concerned if my own son were 23 and going to war. But I'd like to think that I might have had something to say earlier, when it mattered - when my son was thinking of enlisting in the first place.

The operative word is "enlisting." While many opponents insist that we should apply the lessons of Vietnam to the war in Afghanistan, there are significant differences between the two conflicts. For one thing, unlike the Vietnam era, there is no conscription.

We can assume that the Marine whose father wrote me volunteered to serve his country.

We should all be grateful for his service, as well as for the service of hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform. And it's also true that one of the wonderful qualities of the American people is that we treasure the safety of our citizens, whether in uniform or not. Unlike the goons in al-Qaida who think nothing of killing thousands of innocent people, Americans put a high value on human life.

But something is off kilter when that aversion to putting one's life in danger applies even to those professions where it is understood that this sort of thing comes with the territory. Like say, a firefighter. Or a police officer. Or a Marine.

Americans always say that we support our troops. But the only way to do that is to make sure we back them up, with as many additional troops as is necessary to make sure as many as possible come home safe and sound. If we can't do this, we're just leaving it to someone else's father - or mother - to do the worrying.

Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

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