Watch Rethink Afghanistan's latest video: Worse Than Vietnam?
On Monday, June 7, 2010, the Afghanistan War will complete its 104th month, replacing Vietnam as the longest war in U.S. history.
That's an incredible investment of blood and treasure, and one that deepens by the minute. We're spending $1 million per troop, per year in Afghanistan. To date, Congress has approved almost $300 billion in spending on the Afghanistan War. Combined with the costs for the war in Iraq, we've spent more than $1 trillion so far on war since 2001, just in direct costs. Right now, Congress is considering charging the U.S. taxpayer another $33 billion to pay for an ongoing troop increase.
And, don't forget that more than 1,000 U.S. troops have died so far in this war.
Most Americans now say that the Afghanistan War isn't worth the costs. They're right.
According to CNN:
[T]he Department of Homeland Security says 'the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period.'
After 104 months of war, the last 12 of which saw the U.S. triple the number of troops in Afghanistan, attempted terror attacks against our country are at an all-time high.
No one in their right mind would look at the costs and the "benefits" of this strategy and think, "Yes, I want to sink more human lives and national wealth into that!" U.S. policy in Afghanistan is broken. Inertia carries it forward, not return-on-investment.
We've seen this kind of inertia before. Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg explained it in 1971: "It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam." President Obama has set at start-date for a withdrawal, but no end date.
If we're not careful, we'll find that it's always a bad year to leave Afghanistan, too.
As shown in the latest video from Brave New Foundation's Rethink Afghanistan campaign, people across partisan lines and ideological camps are coming together with a simple message: Enough is enough. More than 32,000 people are working together on our Facebook page to spread a simple message: It's not working, and it's not worth the cost.
There's no excuse for letting this disaster drag out any longer. Join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and help us shut it down.
Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robertgreenwald
Serbian military analyst and an authoritative expert on the situation in Kosovo, Milovan Drecun says that, according to the Europol and Interpol, the largest amount of heroin is delivered to Europe from Afghanistan via Kosovo. According to some estimates, some 65% of all the world’s heroin is channeled through the former Serbian province; while 90% of all drugs that reach Europe are shipped via Kosovo.
Officially, the Americans are working hard to stamp out heroin production in Afghanistan, but in reality they, namely the CIA, are using the proceeds from the drug trade, including the illegal drug traffic to Kosovo from Afghanistan which is facilitated mainly via the Bondsteel Base, to replenish their secret coffers, at least that’s what American newspapers have recently been writing about. Milovan Drecun reports.
Other reports mention a U.S. connection with a member of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army and a close friend of Kosovo Premier Hashim Taci who are believed to have been smuggling up to 150 kilos of heroin and cocaine at a time. These criminals were chummy with a café owner close to the Bondsteel Base and were doing business with the American officers there, Milovan Drecun adds.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/05/9145070.html
In Vietnam we attacked a country that had already repelled every invading force brought against it, the most recent, Japan and France. We fought a defensive war of politics and policy. We were not allowed to bomb certain areas such as Hanoi, Guess where the enemy kept its goods. We were only allowed to fly in a narrow corridor , in and out of the main land, Guess where the NVA,set up their anti aircraft.
We were dropping 100,000 dollar bombs on grass huts. We had terrible leadership, and the generals were mostly yes men, for the white house. We could have had Vietnam at any time , How do I know? I know because we won every major battle we fought.We lacked the will, and the enemy knew it and capitalized on it.
We have done great things for the Afghan people, but now we seem to be slipping, our treasury is bankrupt. we have fought a Political war of policy against an enemy that knows we are not serious, he is about to see a Mosque, Built on the very spot that he dealt us the heaviest blow in this war, He know's we are soft , He knows that our public officials are so corrupt that they would allow this. He is re, energized by it.
_ Zbigniew Brzezinski
Thanks for bringing it to attention
Fanned
Faved
Canada has lost 147 soldiers in the Afghanistan war, 130 of them from hostile causes. icasualties.org lists 1108 fatalities among US forces participating in the Afghan war (and all theaters of Operation Enduring Freedom), 827 from hostile causes. Population data: US = 309 million, Canada = 34 million. I think the "hostile causes" figures are a little more reflective of direct contributions to the Afghan war effort. Accidents or heart attacks, stuff like that, happen whether you're at war or not.
Anyway, to date, Canada has lost 4.3 troops from all causes for every 1 million of population, and 3.8 troops from hostile causes, while the United States has lost 3.6 troops from all causes for every 1 million of population, and 2.7 troops from hostile causes.
Surprisingly, the United Kingdom, with a population of 62 million, has suffered greater casualties in Afghanistan, per capita, than either US or Canada. 294 UK troops have died in Afghanistan (4.7 troops per 1 million population), 265 of them from hostile causes (4.3 per million).
And to some extent these figures overstate slightly the contribution, in this one statistic, of the US, as some deaths in other theaters having very little obvious relevance to the war in Afghanistan, are included in the icasualties database.
Really, the only way I see a semi-coherent government or "building of a nation" would be if the separate factions were to coalesce around the idea of pushing the United States out; right now, we're playing each side against each other (whether knowingly or not), and while that may make the occupation a bit easier, it also ensures that efforts and treasure spent trying to create a functioning Afghan government will be unproductive and ultimately wasted.
I think the Vietnam comparison is a good one... but I think Afghanistan will be even more difficult to end because of it's obvious connections to the terrorism of nearly a decade ago, and the fact that there is no draft. Without the draft, it's far too easy for Americans to slap a ribbon sticker on their car, go the chickenhawk route, and forget about what the war is costing us.
During Vietnam war there was the legitimate overarching issue of Soviet communism which was skillfully manipulated. Now, there isn't even a real threat from anywhere and yet Americans are suckered into supporting these kinds of wars. That only shows you how far we've fallen.
Eisenhower has forewarned us of the dangers from the congressional-military-industrial-complex. Have you noticed that no president ever since has ever cared to talk about this issue, even after leaving office?! Ask yourself, why is that and you will begin the grasp the cancer which has spread across our society and culture. Americans have been skillfully manipulated into supporting it without any questioning.
Concentrating on ending this war is worth the effort but it ought not stop there.
- Mike Prysner (Iraq War Veteran)
supidity will rule .....until we demand otherwise!
(thank you for your service!)