Afghanistan is Coming to You

“O,” our great hope of change, has turned the corner into the same.  As far as I am concerned, mark this day, less than a month after his inauguration, that President Obama has done our nation wrong.   Yesterday, Tuesday, February 18th, he voted to send 17,000 troops to Afghanistan this Spring and early summer.  This, I warn you, is only the beginning.

At 47 years old, though older than me, perhaps he was not raised protesting the Vietnam War.  Perhaps he does not remember the countless soldiers killed, the countless soldiers maimed, the countless soldiers who lost their mind or became addicted to drugs.  Perhaps he does not remember that there was no way to “win” that war.  Perhaps he only remembers that Kennedy got us deep into that war and Kennedy is a hero who Obama aspires to simulate (just listen to their speeches).  Perhaps President Obama only remembers that he promised those who elected him that he would get out of Iraq, and he forgets that the people who elected him want peace.  Not war.

I admit, I heard President Obama utter about securing Afghanistan and fighting the terrorists there.  I also heard President Obama preach Diplomacy.  If diplomacy won’t work for Afghanistan, then neither will a military invasion.  This is a country that has never been won over by foreign invaders, a country with diverse and unknown terrain, a country whose people must be behind any military invasion or we will, surely, be in something we can only say will resemble the war with Vietnam… only worse. 

Now that our president has the excuse of the Taliban making amends with the government of Pakistan (perhaps we might have done that first) and that we must somehow protect Afghanistan from its infiltration (I have news for him that the Taliban has already infiltrated Afghanistan), perhaps we should look at some more rudimentary issues.  Though I am not a Harvard Grad, I have my own brand of street smarts and common sense.  So, let’s look at, at least, what we learned from Vietnam and Iraq.

1.  What is the Plan?  What is the EXIT STRATEGY?

2.  How do we plan to WIN THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PEOPLE?  These people have suffered greatly by U.S. and NATO bombings.  How do we plan to win the hearts and minds of a nation that has lost approximately ten thousand civilians who have been killed directly because of this war – at least 7,760 – 10,557 as tallied from different sources (Wikipedia). How do we plan to win the hearts and minds of a nation that has lost approximately 30, 000 civilians due to “indirect” causes of the war (displacement, starvation, and disease) .  The population of Afghanistan is approximately 29 million.  Three and a half times the population of New York City.  There were 2,974 people killed in the World Trade Center on 9.11, and everyone in New York City knew a story of someone who had been killed.  So, proportionally, the people of Afghanistan are each close to a victim of the war.

3.  Terrorist recruitment.  There was Guantanamo, and the other prisons in which we tortured people.  There was the war in Iraq.  And now there is Afghanistan, where we will give the people of that country a reason to fight against us, since we are not getting their solidarity before we begin. 

Then, of course, there is the cost.

Thousands of lives lost. 

To date already an estimated 3 TRILLION dollars for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, which started with an estimate of 50 billion.  As we send more troops to Afghanistan, we will have to send more still, and the 3 trillion will grow.

Next to torture, the failing economy worldwide is the greatest enabler of Terrorism.

So, for National Security, we are spending money we do not have, on a war for which there is no exit strategy, at a time when our economy is on the brink of collapse.  Oh, and while using brutal military force in a terrain we do not know, we will repeatedly bomb the civilians while running out the Taliban.   And   Al Qaeda is there somewhere.  Perhaps moving into the
towns that we run the Taliban out of.

“O,” our great hope for change has done us wrong.  This is the same, the same, the same.  It is even worse because we, still, have not learned from our mistakes.

“O,” Operation Enduring Freedom, we continue with strength, courage, and, worse, this time, without ignorance.

So, get ready for Afghanistan in your neighborhood soon.  War spreads terrorism.  Poverty breeds terrorism.  An unstable world economy breeds unrest.  Unrest breeds terrorism.  The cycle continues.  The debt gets worse.  And so on. 

But I did not graduate from Harvard.  I am only going on common sense and the history books.  Who am I to criticize, “O,” the great hope for change.