This past week, the United States recognized a dubious milestone in our country's history as direct war spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan topped $1 trillion. Unfortunately, we have reached a second milestone, with the War in Afghanistan passing the Vietnam War to officially become the longest military conflict in American history.
Most historians agree that the Vietnam War began with the enactment of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, ended with the withdrawal of the last American troops in March of 1973, and lasted a total of 103 months. The War in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001 when President George W. Bush ordered air strikes against militant camps. As of today, June 7, 2010, the war has just ended its 104th month.
For many, the Vietnam War conjures up images of war fatigue, when a larger ideological and strategic rationale for going to war devolved into a sense that our country was trapped in a military quagmire that lacked a clear purpose, identifiable goals, and deliverable objectives. After nearly nine years of war, many Americans are beginning to have many of the same impressions about our military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
We should remember that the United States originally attacked Afghanistan to disrupt the Al Qaeda terrorist network. In an interview with CNN last October, National Security Advisor, General James Jones, acknowledged that "fewer than a hundred" Al Qaeda militants remain in Afghanistan. And yet, the war continues.
Like Vietnam, America's political leadership struggles to justify the lives and treasure sacrificed in Afghanistan. Clear objectives have been replaced with murky concept-slogans, like "securing the population" or implementing "government in a box" in previously lawless areas, which seem to have only a tangential connection to allowing our troops to complete their mission and come home. For example, as we prepare for a new offensive in Kandahar, the failure of the Afghan police to impose order following the recent operations in Marja should cause Americans to question whether the current troop surge is helping to bring the war to a close.
In an interview with C-SPAN taped before his death last year, former Secretary of Defense McNamara noted that one of the Vietnam War's fatal flaws was the failure to recognize the existence of a civil war:
"We were fighting -- and we didn't realize it -- a civil war. Now, true, obviously there were Soviet and Chinese influence and support and no question that the communists were trying to control South Vietnam, but it was basically a civil war. And one of the things we should learn is you can't fight and win a civil war with outside troops, and particularly not when the political structure in a country is dissolved. So it wasn't the press that was the problem. The problem was that we were in the wrong place with the wrong tactics.''
McNamara's words should haunt us today, as we recognize this new standard for military occupation. No amount of firepower will convince the Afghans to decide how to coexist with each other. Political conflicts do not have military solutions.
The Vietnam War took 58,000 American lives, weakened America's image abroad for many years afterward, and sapped the ability of multiple presidents to pursue a robust domestic agenda at home. The War in Afghanistan is having a similar effect on our country.
Despite his many flaws, Richard Nixon recognized that there was a tipping point when our military presence in Vietnam could no longer be sustained. I believe we are close to a such a tipping point today. Many Members of Congress and citizen-activists are calling for withdrawal. I hope that you will join us. Securing a sustainable future for Afghans and Americans starts with bringing the troops home now.
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. is the chair of the Out of Afghanistan Caucus.
Amendment 2 begins *A well regulated Militia [military], being necessary to the security [defense] of a free State*, the most important part of it suggesting Al Qaeda were to be free once they passed US territorial waters. Bush was supposed to have defended the WTC and Pentagon, not issue a stand down order to ADC having intelligence telling him something was to happen using aircraft. That attack on US soil is squarely the failure of our Commander in Chief to heighten security under intelligence revealed condition. Wouldn't that be adhering to the enemy, Treason?
Therefore, America's political leadership struggles to justify the lies they knew were lies when going along with it, to justify the wasteful spending of taxpayer's money. Maybe they want this to be "the battle of that great day of god almighty" (Revelation 16:14) [to end civilization], but this nation is still standing so it can not come into fruitation until this nation has gone into perdition (Revelation 17:11) and the "mark of the beast" system is set up (Revelation 13:16-17).
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
We must act immediately to let our voices unite and to be heard!
We must lay down our lives to save our children! Let President
Obama know that the war must end NOW! Not one more
minute, not one more life!
Thank you for having the courage to speak the truth! Where can our voices make the most impact for ending this nightmare? So many human lives and families have been impacted in such horrific ways. Such human tragedy - please save our children - pull out immediately! So many dead and so many human lives shattered beyond repair. The ripple effect is far reaching throughout families, communities, and the country.
With the economy the way it is and people still out of work and losing homes, how can we keep spending lives and money where we are not really wanted.
I am not saying that we should be isolationists, but I am saying that somewhere the priorities have to be redefined.
Then again, I am not a politician and don't know what is really going on.
Part of the process--like adrenal letdown--is that for all the hope Obama raised, he is destroying in his failings. Maybe he believed he could do everything he promised; maybe he was just naive; or maybe he's just another liar determined to get what he wants at the cost of what we need?
Hey, people bought into "compassionate Conservative," so why not someone who actually inspired hope instead of fear? Disillusionment, that's the word I'm looking for; people will make sacrifices beyond reason, then fall prey to reason when it is lacking.
The problem, my friend, isn't the idea behind protest or other forms of complaint, but who it is we are supposed to complain to. Unless our elected officials or the organizations who pay them off are afraid of being voted out or losing revenues, they're better off not making changes to how they do our and their business.
Wanting to take care of our country before others is by most definitions a form of patriotism, and the reason you don't know what's really going on is because our government hides so much of what it's really doing.
Since you ended your article with "I hope you wll join us", I'm submitting my vote.
Bring the troops home from Afghanistan NOW! It was ill-founded to ever enter their country in the first place. But then, we know who was responsible for that.
Thank you,
A very concerned citizen
Though it all fell on deaf ears where there was so much money to be made by the weapons industries from bullets to clothes.
And the people want to get re-elected so they bring home the different industries to provide jobs for the local peoples. And OH they add the pork.
Don't forget that.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Then we've spent how much, so far? A trillion (or so)?
OK.
Who's won, already?
Watan Risk Management - a private security company - is under investigation but, is complicated by, among other things, the fact that it is owned by relatives of President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials. Watan’s president, Rashid Popal for instance, is a cousin of Mr. Karzai, and Western officials say that Watan Risk Management’s largest shareholder is Mr. Karzai’s brother Qayum.
U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Butler said after retiring, that:
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
Even so, Mr. Butler, R.I.P.