By the time 2010 came to a close 1370 Americans had died in the Afghan theater. Of those, 1309 were killed in Afghanistan, 15 in Pakistan, and one in Uzbekistan, and 45 others died elsewhere of their wounds. Nearly 500 died last year alone.
For what did they die?
Until last month these numbers were but abstract statistics to me. There were names attached to each one, of course, and the Pentagon issued a standard four-sentence press release per death. But while I have family members and friends in the military and friends who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, thankfully none have died in combat. From my perspective, the long list of unfamiliar names -- available online, like most everything else in life -- could have been a few pages from the phone book or the results from a marathon.
In December one of those names took on special significance. A Marine Corps corporal was killed in Helmand. He was one of ten claimed by that province in December.
I didn't know him, but he was a favorite relative of a very good friend. The family was close, with regular reunions so even extended relationships remained tight. His death broke up my friend.
That helped turn a statistic into a person.
Death is an inevitable cost of war, and war sometimes is a terrible necessity. But why Afghanistan in 2010? More than nine years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, precisely why did this young man die?
The U.S. originally intervened in Afghanistan to destroy al-Qaeda and overthrow the Taliban, which had hosted Osama bin Laden. That mission was accomplished long ago: al-Qaeda was weakened and dispersed, the Taliban was ousted and punished, and other governments learned the risk of hosting anti-American terrorists.
Administration officials still cite the need to combat al-Qaeda, but it has found an even more hospitable haven in neighboring Pakistan, where the intelligence service long has played a double game. Moreover, much of the Taliban, which is fractured like most politics in Afghanistan, likely would not welcome back a group guaranteed to again bring down Washington's wrath. Today the U.S.-led war may be -- in fact, probably is -- creating more terrorists than it is killing.
Some analysts hold up the fragility of Pakistan as a reason to stay in Afghanistan. However, the war itself is destabilizing that perpetually unstable nation. If the U.S. was not attempting to create a friendly regime in Kabul, it would have less need to press Islamabad to crack down on the Taliban's Pakistani allies. Pakistan's future would be difficult in any case, but ending American participation in the war would ease the Islamabad government's task.
The prospect of a regional struggle for influence in Afghanistan leads some policymakers to advocate a continued U.S. presence. Yet that competition already is ongoing, if somewhat muted. Whether or not American forces are present, Afghanistan is going to be a regional battleground for Pakistan, India, Iran, and Russia. The U.S. has little at stake in that struggle and should leave the conflict to others, avoiding the crossfire.
Credibility is another argument. To leave would be to admit defeat. And withdrawal would reduce the belief of potential adversaries that Washington has sufficient stamina to win and belief of potential friends that they can rely on America.
Undoubtedly there is truth to this contention, but the risk to credibility is best assessed before intervening in conflicts and setting unrealistic, even extravagant objectives. America's credibility will suffer an even greater hit if the U.S. sticks around longer before eventually leaving. And how many lives should be sacrificed for "credibility" when the original objective is no longer thought to warrant the high cost of staying?
The most appealing argument for remaining in Afghanistan is humanitarian: After nearly four decades of conflict, the Afghan people deserve to live in a free and prosperous society. And they do. But that has little to do with America's presence.
Military intervention is a poor means of achieving humanitarian ends. Outside military intervention is rarely an effective tool of nation-building. That the U.S. is well-intentioned matters little to most Afghans who are fighting -- less for the Taliban and more against America and its allies.
When I visited Afghanistan last year, one U.S. consultant said I should imagine the war from an Afghan perspective: what would I think if another nation invaded my country, imposed an unpopular, corrupt government on my community, overturned traditional mores of my culture, arrested my friends and relatives, and sporadically killed my neighbors.
There is little support for the Taliban in many parts of Afghanistan. But the corrupt, ineffective Karzai government often is equally if not more unpopular. Afghans told me that the U.S. should not send in the Afghan National Police, since its activities -- often robbing and terrorizing the local population -- actually create Taliban. Allied personnel had little better to say about the ANP.
Leaving is no panacea. There are liberal Afghans who want to build a free society and fear for their future after an American departure. But the U.S. is incapable of remaking Afghanistan, at least at reasonable cost in reasonable time. It is one thing to ask patriotic Americans to die to protect America. It is quite another to send them to die in a Quixotic quest to "fix" other countries.
Afghanistan has become Barack Obama's war. More Americans have died since he was inaugurated on January 20, 2009 than before. He says he intends to begin withdrawing U.S. forces this year, but virtually no one in or out of government believes him.
Withdrawal is one promise he should keep.
Why did my friend's loved one die? I wish I had a satisfactory answer for her. It certainly wasn't to defend America or stop terrorism. It wasn't to stabilize a perpetually unruly Pakistan or Central Asia. It wasn't to sustain America's credibility, which has survived worse challenges. It wasn't to bring democracy to Afghanistan.
As far as I can tell, it was just "because."
It is time to say no more. No more unnecessary wars for dubious purposes. No more painful human sacrifices in arcane geopolitical games.
Before another American dies the president should begin bringing home U.S. forces. Nine years is enough. It is time to leave the Afghanistan war to the Afghans.
Joe Peyronnin: A Toast to America 2011
If the wars have taught us anything, it is that our nation is no longer controlled by "we the people." We no longer have direct control over our government, be it local or national. Our votes make very little difference when push comes to shove. From the comments at HuffPost, it seems that many Americans absolutely despise the war for both fiscal and humanitarian reasons. However, if you don't have millions (no, make that billions) to buy off the corporations who run the politicians...lacking that, you can't directly influence the course of government anymore.
What our government has done and is doing to our military members borders on a human rights violation. PTSD and TBI go routinely untreated, deployments stretch into 12-15 months at a time, stop-loss is enforced, and as any military member knows, once you enlist you can't leave for love or money until your commitment is up...and some of these commitments were made well prior to 9/11.
War is becoming a permanent fixture in the USA.
It seems like the Russians, Chinese, and other "Far East" ethnic groups could be good allies. And, the Pakistan/Afghanistan regions are right next door to our friends in India. I don't think any of our soldiers have died in vein.
Afghanistan certainly is an interesting place on the map. Perhaps our friends in India want to settle, inhabit, or populate the region.
2) So al Qaeda has found a haven in Pakistan. That's news? That surprises anyone? As I pointed out many years ago, they will find a haven wherever we are not. That's not an excuse to quit in Afghanistan and allow them safe haven there AND in Pakistan both. We MUST keep incrementally reducing their safe havens and breeding grounds. Iraq was a good place to start. Afghanistan, difficult as it is, is still a necessary place to continue. And then Iran, Malaysia, the Philippines--wherever Muslim jihad finds a foothold. Perhaps even in New York City!
Bring our troops home, permit them to rest and heal, and spend our time and initiative on good intelligence here and in cooperation with our allies, spend it on securing our borders and ports and adjust to the fact that nothing we are doing in Afghanistan is making us any safer.
The Muslim supremacists will always go where we aren't. Therefore, we must generally be everywhere and convert oppressive regimes that breed terrorism into decent semblances of democracies that can suppress the terrorists on their own.
Yup. Pointing guns at peoples heads and shooting their children goes far toward winning the hearts and minds of a population.
(Sarcasm off)
Next spring when the Taliban resume fighting there will be a crop of younger ruthless members coming to the fore.
The corruption will be deeper entrenched via the regional warlords.
Aid agencies identifying more no go areas.
And a growing reliance on drone attacks.
Less lielihood of the desired pull out.
That's what for?
No doubt Rome had reasons for its conquests before its fall.
The upshot of it all was that for the very poor, one of the few avenues left for advancement was to join the legions and and go and slaughtet innocent Gauls, Germans, Parthians and Judaeans.
Please, before you make historical assertions you learned on The 700 Club, you need to do a whole lot more research.
"Stones Into Schools
Khaled Hosseini writes that "If we accept the premise that education is the key to achieving positive, long lasting change in Afghanistan, then it is impossible to overstate how encouraging it is that this year[2009] nearly eight and a half million children will attend school in Afghanistan, with girls accounting for nearly 40% of enrollment." Mortenson founded 131 schools, providing education for some 58,000 students.
"During the 1970s, the women of urban Afghanistan enjoyed a level of professional freedom and autonomy that was relatively liberal for a conservative Muslim society. According to the US-Afghan Women's Council a significant percentage of the women in Kabul worked for a living-tens of thousands of them serving in medicine, law, journalism, engineering.
.. in Kabul , unveiled females could be seen inside factories, and offices, t.v. and walking the street wearing Eastern European style cloths.
The Taliban ended that.
The cities war widows, 50 thousand, had no way to earn a living, prostitution or begging and stealing, which if caught meant stoning or amputations
100,000 school girls were kicked out , and 8000 university students, 8000 teachers lost their jobs"
AQ has not had the opportunity to redo 9/11. It doesn't have Afghanistan, and cowers under drones. Yes, you should have said he died to defend America and to bring peace to Afghanistan. The Taliban are terrorists, and are poring tuns of drugs into the world. Only 9% of the Afghans would want the Taliban back, and would not like the waves of death they bring with them. As one Afghan said, "They are our Killers!"
Is the deliberate destruction of our economy at least partly done to try to prevent our successful prosecution of the war on Muslim supremacist jihad?
It is dificult for me to have a serious discussion of the 'war" in Afghanistan, if we cannot acknowloge why we are there to begin with. Sorry, but it really is all about oil, and now natural gas, and pipelines. It is the same reason we put sanctions on Iran. Let me explain.
The Saudis have a near monopoly on oil/gas. the EU, Japan, and other countries depend on the Mid east and russia for oil/gas. This bothers the EU, Japan and the US, because they see it as a security issue. What if our supplies of oil/gas were cut off?
The US strategy is hegemony of Central Asia, to secure oil/gas, and control the gas pipelines, to be less dependent on Russia and Mid East, Saudi controled supply.
Therefore, we are in Afghanistan to build the TAPI gas pipeline, and put sanctions on Iran to prevent them from building the IPI gas pipeline.
Now, you may ask, how does this make sense? well, it really does not make sense, which is why, I suspect, the powers that be do not want this to be reported in MSM and become common knowledge.
You can do a youtube search for TAPI GAS PIPELINE, and you will be amazed at what comes up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAhtMurp6LU
Also has some good vintage video.
>if we wanted oil it would be easier to take it from Iraq<
True, or we could just pay for it, it would be much cheaper. But we want to "control" who gets the gas, we do not want others to control the gas pipelines. We want others dependent on us, so we get to call the shots.
This, my friend, is why we are in Afghanistan, and, of course, it will not be a pretty picture ending.
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/10/01/blowback-extended-version/
Lets get real about what is going down, OK?
take care, :)
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden
http://www.newint.org/features/2009/10/01/blowback-extended-version/
As for the taliban, bin La den married the top Mullah's daughter. I am thinking that Bush believed he would support the US and influence the Taliban, Didn't work out that way.
Lib or Con, Dem or Rep, if you love this country, admit we are getting played by Washington and agree not to play this hideous game. Voice your opposition to this unnessary war.
This is supposition on your part, and I'd say you're wrong on each point. 1) the cost of all the wars so to speak is $100B a year, which is 7% of the deficit and a less than 2% of the budget. by comparison, we spend twice as much servicing the debt to absolutely no gain to anyone ... where's the outrage at that? 2) we don't know whether it's destabilizing or stabilizing. when you're dealing with one of the most unstable regions on Earth, how likely is it that we are further destabilizing it? not likely. 3) what estranges allies and makes enemies of neutrals is pusillanimous wavering and failure to honor to commitments. it is becoming such a commonplace among Americans that no commitment is worth suffering for that we have lost sight of the fact that people in other parts of the world, particular south and east asis, africa, and central and south america, understand and respect commitment to a promise, even when there's sacrifice involved. we in the west have evolved beyond standing for what we say, in the rest of the world it still means something.
What we are entitled to demand from President Obama and Speaker Boehner is that they talk straight and mean what they say, regardless whether we like the message or not.
"what estranges allies and makes enemies of neutrals is pusillanimÂous wavering and failure to honor to commitmentÂs" - cr@plike that was threatened to keep us in VietNam. Well, we left VietNam and that didn't happen. Childish nonsense about "commitments" is honey smeared over warlust. International politics is far more complicated than that, which makes it far more better to use diplomacy than guns.
Nobody's interested in the size of American genitals anymore but a few American kids reading too many comic books.
So I throw my energies into issues.
The first prioty is ending the colonial occupation of Afghanistan.
It is bankrupting this nation; it is destroying its moral fibre; it is ensuring increasing animosity to the US and increasing enlistments into terrorist causes. It is unstable in its economic directives, disastrous in its diplomatic effects.
I will support any candidate - any, Dem or Rep, Lib or Con, who will help to end this terrible wasteful and easting military adventurism. On other issues I may choose other alliances; but the first priority for this nation is ending our occupation in Afghanistan and our involvement, to any extent, in Iraq. I offer my hand in alliance to any who would work to hat goal.