How Do You Ask a Man to Be the Last Man to Die for a Mistake in Afghanistan?

What happened today in Washington was, as Senator Russ Feingold called it, "historic." Thirty-eight years nearly to the day when a young John Kerry shocked the nation with his fiery anti-Vietnam war testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rick Reyes, a former US Marine Corporal, delivered an equally puissant testimony in which he expressed his disenchantment with the war in Afghanistan. How appropriate Kerry should be sitting directly across from Reyes as Committee Chairman, listening attentively as Congress heard one of the first major voices of dissent on this war.

The son of Mexican immigrants who joined the Marines to escape a violent gang life in Los Angeles, Reyes served as an infantry rifleman in Afghanistan and Iraq. He upheld his duty to serve our country honorably, and immediately after 9/11, he was deployed to Afghanistan "with the conviction of fighting for justice and the American way." All of that changed when Reyes realized US military forces faced the impossible task of fighting militant Taliban members who blended in with the local Afghan population, routinely resulting in the injuries or deaths of innocent civilians.

As Reyes told Congress:

"We weren't fulfilling our objective of capturing terrorists, but instead creating enemies out of civilians. As a Marine trying to ensure justice, I began losing sight of why I was there and the conviction began to fade.

"Because our mission was to capture suspected Taliban and had no successful way of being able to distinguish them, we had no other choice but to suspect the entire civilian population, innocent or not.

"One day we stopped at gun point, detaining, beating, and nearly killing an innocent man only to find he was just traveling down a road to deliver milk to his children. Because of us, that day those kids went without a father. There were hundreds of incidents like this one.

"Almost 100 percent of the time we would find that suspected terrorists turned out to be innocent civilians. I began to feel like we were chasing ghosts, fighting an enemy that we could not see or that didn't allow itself to be seen. How can you tell the difference between the Taliban and Afghan civilians? The answer is that you can't. it all stopped making sense."

Reyes is a patriot, but like a young John Kerry, he felt that patriotism exploited when he returned home from these wars. The chaotic violence Reyes experienced, coupled with the lack of clear mission in Afghanistan, led him to question our government's plans for this war publicly today. He cited low troop morale and military forces stretched impossibly thin; soldiers who have already done multiple tours, Reyes claimed, are dying on the ground in Afghanistan and in spirit due to a deeply flawed foreign policy.

As the casualty rate of US soldiers in Afghanistan nears 700--with violence at its worst in the history of this war--we must also consider more and more troops returning home injured and in dire need of psychological help. And that only begins to scratch the surface of why Reyes believes Congress should reconsider plans for escalation. "Sending more troops will not make the US safer; it will only build more opposition against us. I urge you on behalf of truth and patriotism to consider carefully and Rethink Afghanistan."

Kerry, who couldn't help but draw parallels between the Vietnam War and the escalating conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan, stressed the importance of hearing soldiers testify about the conditions in Afghanistan. "History proves that soldiers on the ground have an intimate knowledge that is vital to their commanders and us as policymakers," Kerry said. "Most recently, it was soldiers who sounded the early warnings that our mission in Iraq had some problems."

We should be seeing more soldiers like Reyes sitting before Congress, if not to channel Kerry's anti-war passion from 38 years ago, then to alert the nation to what's really going on in this war and compel the public to question policymakers, as Kerry once did. That absolutely must happen now, as Congress will soon consider a war funding bill in excess of $83 billion, with ten times more for expanding military operations than humanitarian aid. Take a minute to call your Representatives (if you're not sure who represents you, it's time you found out). Tell them not to vote on the war funding bill until they have heard from more soldiers like Reyes, and certainly not until they've started explaining what escalation will mean for us and the people of Afghanistan.

 

Comments

[billygore2000]

Shouldn't Bush and Cheney vie to be the last man to die for the mistake of Afghanistan?

[Berettasskeeter]

Why would they do that? They are both too old for service, and neither has the training for infantry combat!
Semper fi

[Solaris123]

Beretta, you're using way too much logic and sense. Most people here prefer empty slogans and snarks.

[Solaris123]

Afghanistan occupation - a just conflict, fully supported by United Nations mandates, with extensive international participation.
Deal with it.

[billygore2000]

Shouldn't Bush and Cheney vie to be the last man to die for the mistake of Afghanistan?

[Solaris123]

In another words, you're unable to counter my comment.

[indyleftist]

You mean supported by NATO with no Arab nations supporting it?

[Berettasskeeter]

Why did the Arabs have to support it? Afghans are not Arabs!
Semper fi

[Veronica]

And YOU are unable to counter Cpl. Reyes' comments, so you try to change the subject. Extensive international participation counters Reyes' points....­how, exactly?

Also, I sincerely doubt you would tell Reyes to "deal with it" to his face.

[dayala]

why are we fighting the TALIBAN??

I thought our initial objective after 9/11 was to get Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, who were at the time hiding
in the mountains of Afghanistan, WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT PLAN???

now were fighting the TALIBAN???­....wtf do they have to do with 9/11...we went from Iraq to the Taliban,
neither of which have any relevancy to 9/11, this quagmire is WORSE than Vietnam.

[Solaris123]

We had to get thru' Taliban to get at AQ. We failed. The fight and reconstruction are still on. And will continue as long as necessary. As it should be.

[AlexNYC]

I believe the Bush Administration and the Pentagon did not want to capture Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda who were responsible for the 9/11attacks. If they did, then the direct threat to the US would have been resolved. Instead the military stood back in Tora Bora in Dec 2001 and gave the responsibility to capture Bin Laden to the Afghanistan military, in essence purposely allowing them to escape. Thus the "fight against terrorism" can continue and the US can spread similar claims to Iraq. If anything, Pakistan is more of a potential terrorist threat that any country in the world.

For all intensive pruposes, BIn Laden is well protected in Pakistan, which has terrorist networks working in tandum with those in Afghanistan. President Obama has good intentions but because Bush took the focus off the war in Afghanistan, it's probably too late to effectively save that country now, especially with neighboring Pakistan spiralling out of control.

[LeftRight]

I remember back when I was in the Navy and temporarily stationed in Norfolk for the six month anniversary of 9/11......­. I was reading the paper that day talking about how our forces were fighting the Taliban leftovers, since they'd been routed so quickly from the official seats of power, but were still holding on to the REAL seats of power....

I said back then, this looks like Vietnam...­.. I told everyone that I knew, and no one would listen to me except my father and grandmother. Everyone else seemed to think that I was insane!

[SonofLiberty1]

Did Vietnam attack US? NOPE...thi­s is not Vietnam...­are you old enough to have a draft card from Vietnam?

I am....

This is not Vietnam!

[hegdehog]

Iraq didn't attack us either. Neither did Afghanistan. So what's your point?

[SouthernYankeeBelle]

He is talking about the outcome. In that way it surely could be. I am old enough to remember VN. My father-in-law served in VN as a trainer. My father retired before he was going to be sent to VN. He had been there before anyone knew what was going on. My dad said he was getting to old to fight, he was in WWII and Korea along with my father-in-law. My father-in-law was a trainer. He said then before we even started having a build up in VN that the local people weren't willing to fight. If those that lived there weren't really willing to fight how do you expect to win. My father-in-law was a grunt and retired as a MSGT. He said was the worse experience he had. He retired after 24 yrs because my mother-in-law gave him the choice retire or she was living him. She had seen such a change in him. Thank god he retired and put in papers in to retire because after that he was on the list to go back. I see the outcome for the soldiers in Afgan almost the same as VN. The difference is the soldiers were supported by the country in Afgan and not in VN. That is sad because the VN soldiers did what they were told to do.

[hark]

The Taliban didn't attack us. What are you talking about?

[LeftRight]

And when exactly did Iraq or Afghanistan attack us????? See cause while I remember a few citizens of one of those countries attacking us once, I ALSO remember the countries NOT attacking us!!!

[000Jade000]

Chasing ghosts so that the war profiteers can keep looting what's left of the treasury.

[Rog49Thomas]

Depending on your personal morality and the level of your political delusion, it can be quite easy.

[TheBurdicks]

Trapped in our national state of adult attention deficit, we clamor for 15 minutes over the horror of torture before returning our interest to more comfortable topics like Bo the dog, Miss California, and Slumdog Millionaire.
Meanwhile, the horror plays out in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy craters, and health care and education are neglected, mostly forgotten in our disordered state.
Once we could walk and chew gum at the same time.

To this topic, the errors of Afghanistan are manifest. That 9/11 criminals trained, finalized their plot, and launched their attack, all from within the U.S., was swept aside so we could focus our short attention span on the politically expedient (and pipeline enabling?) strategy of blaming Afghani’s in general, and Taliban specifically, for the crime of 9/11. We forget that we armed the Taliban (as mujahaddin), and funded their madrassas and training camps. Buried in our brief clamor for prosecution is the likelihood that torture was used to justify our attack on Afghanistan and to sustain that justification. Neglected is the obvious, that war on these people is expanding the pool of angry young men ready for suicide missions, and now threatens (with nuclear implications) regional instability.
There are better options. They are political and diplomatic. This is the 21st Century. We must forever abandon the military option, focus on police response to crimes of terror, spend our money on pressing economic and social issues, and return to diplomacy.
Yes we can!

[thenorthshore]

blast from the past.

as johnny the war 'hero' was running for president, he was quite excited about some endosements.

First of all, in case you haven’t heard, foreign leaders from across the globe have endorsed John Kerry. Well, that is, if you ask the Senator. You see, several days ago, Kerry, when speaking before a group of Floridians on the campaign trail, decided it was time to announce this stinging revelation. “They [unnamed foreign leaders] look at you [Kerry] and say, ‘Boy, you’ve got to win this. You’ve got to beat this guy [President Bush]. We need a new policy.’”

I have been able to find two key endorsements for John Kerry by foreign leaders. One came from Iran—and the other from North Korea. I’ll even stipulate that Spain’s newly elected socialist government will follow suit. So, Kerry may have the socialists and already has two despotic regimes behind him? Well, I guess they are foreign leaders.

[indyleftist]

"casualty rate of US soldiers in Afghanistan nears 700
No, that would be the death rate
Casualty rates are both dead and wounded combined

[LeftRight]

And is MUCH higher, though not as high (in straight numbers) as in Iraq, cause we have a lot more soldiers in Iraq....

[luckybear]

I'm getting a sense of deja vu here. If you replace the word Afghanistan with Iraq this is the sentiment I heard before. It's impossible, the enemy blends in and we should just leave. Maybe we should but Iraq is going much better. Shouldn't we try to stabilize the Afghan government?

I'm sorry but in the scheme of things 700 is not many casualties. A state or region descending into chaos would certainly cause much more death. Many people wanted to give up on Iraq when it looked bleak and leaving Iraq during their civil war would have been a disaster. All I heard for years was Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan, it was the just war. Well we're rectifying that mistake. Some things are worth fighting for. In the absence of world government it is up to us and our allies to finish the job.

[LeftRight]

First, it's not 700 casualties. It's 700 DEATHS, the casualty rate is MUCH higher, since our on field medical care is getting better, and men that would have died in Vietnam are now coming home injured for life.

Second, Iraq is going better not because of anything we've done (except in the buying off of warlords) but because of the combined facts of several MILLION refugees, and the more homogenized neighborhoods.

Third, so if we had just stayed in Vietnam that would have turned out all roses and sunshine too??

And fourth, those 700 deaths have bought an area for the "government" of Afghanistan that is smaller than the capital city!

[luckybear]

What would have leaving Iraq done in the middle of the worst violence achieved? Would they have held hands and sang songs? Us leaving Vietnam allowed a genocide in Cambodia. No one seemed to care that a million were slaughtered while we watched.

Sometimes the greater good is worth the cost. Rwanda wouldn't have been without risk either. Sudan isn't going to get better through concerts and UN resolutions. Thousands have died because of Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

Arguably we should have stayed in Somalia and made sure they had a functioning government. Do you want tens of thousands to die in Afghanistan because of anarchy?

You have to be consistant. Rwanda is a good intervention and Afghanistan isn't? What if we were tied down in Rwanda? Would we leave? Us doing nothing let almost 1 million people to be murdered.

10% of Darfur is already dead, thats the equivalient to 30 million here. Intervention may not run perfectly but it's better than counting the mass graves.

Obama understands this and the left does not.

[buttonz]

I guess since Iraq isn't as violent as it used to be we need to find another war to protest. It seems that anything initiated by Bush it was inherently evil. Never mind the bloody mess in Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia; the torturing and imprisonment of alleged terror suspect during the Clinton administration.

What has happened is terrible, but that's a fact of life. We'll make mistakes and try to improve for the future but we can't be deterred from doing what is necessary just because it has a price.

[CranialRectalLoopback]

We don't have to ask we just need to SCARE THEM into volunteering.

[peterg76]

Surely asking someone to be the second last to die for a mistake is worse.

Of course, in Afghanistan, the overthrow of the government was not a mistake like it was in South Vietnam. The mistake was Little George's attention deficit neglect of strategic objectives.

[LeftRight]

Yes it WAS a mistake! After 9/11, the Taliban offered to turn over OBL for trial, as long as the USA agreed to have the trial in a 3rd country so that BOTH sides could agree that it was fair. Bush turned them down.

[FranklinS]

Sorry to quibble, but the taliban offered to turn OBL over if they were shown evidence of his involvement in 911. The US refused, because there is none.

[CSDofNM]

Our Quaker brothers and sisters would remind us of the lesson of Abraham and Isaac. Told to sacrifice his son, Abraham took Isaac to the mountaintop, be he could not do it. We are told the lesson is that even when we are told to kill in God's name, we should mercifully stay our hand.

If we are not to kill in God's name, why should we kill in Bush's?

If we are not to kill in God's name, why should we kill in Obama's?

[Patriot til Death]

Remember 9/11? That's why we fight in Afghanistan. The Taliban hosted Al-Qaeda. It wasn't a Bush-only objective. I agree with you that no one really "wins" wars. The price is high even for the "victor".

I wish there was a way to eradicate evil without killing innocent civilians. If we go after evil and kill civilians, we are the bad guys. If we do nothing and evil kills civilians, we are the bad guys for doing nothing about it (Darfur). We are damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I say bring all of our troops home and put them on our borders. When evil rears it's ugly head, and surely it will, we tell the UN we are right behind you in going after them. We will be your Air Force, tell us where you want the bombs and we will do our best to hit the target, BUT you have to make the call, otherwise, we'll be right here protecting our borders.

Don't ask us to put boots on the ground, that's for the rest of the world to do, we will control the air.

[ProudAmerican23]

I agree fully with you, except on one item, the UN lacks the moral conviction to go do a job. I wish that wasnt true, and would love to see the world stand united (like the name UN implies) but it hasnt and wont. In 94-95 I served the UN as a US soldier, my job? Border patrol in the mountains between Macedonia and Serbia. Job description? "Observe, monitor, and report" we couldve witness human rights volations, but wouldve never been allowed to even render 1st Aid to the victim. About that time the UN went into Sarajevo (google that if you dont remember the results there) yet the US still pays the lions share of the UN price tag each year. Writes off 100k worth the parking tickets of the UN members who claim diplomatic immunity to the parking fees. That alone sort of says it all about the UN and their commitment to improving the world (they are all for it!... as long as someone else does the hardwork and picks up the tab).

[LeftRight]

Remember how right after 9/11 the Taliban offered to simply GIVE us OBL?? The only caveat that they insisted on was that he be tried in a third country so that BOTH sides could agree it had been fair?? Ringing any bells? Probably not, you seem to get your news from less than reliable sources...­.

[LeftRight]

That's not what happened to Abraham and Issac. Abraham was saddened that he was being told to sacrifice his son, but he was going to do it, until God stayed his hand. The lesson to supposedly be learned is that you do whatever God tells you to do, without question, and you will be rewarded..­...