After reading an article and hearing this subject spoken about on talk radio, I feel the need to vent on this topic. I mean no disrespect to our military here. What the hell are we still doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? The article in the New York Times today said that the US strategy had shifted in Afghanistan from a potential surge to kill the Taliban fighters that are creating chaos in the region to a Civilian building and reconstruction effort. WHAT? WTF??? We did not sign up for that, and more importantly our young men and women soldiers are still dying and for no good reason at all.
I said it during the Bush administration and I am saying it now during the Obama administration: These people, the Afghans and the Iraqis, do not want our help, do not want us there and will go back to what they were before as soon as we pull out of there. We have not changed their system of government fundamentally. It is and always will be a group of different tribes at war with each other. They live in a manner like it is the year 1110 not 2010.
The sooner we pull out of both countries and bring our troops home the better. There are security and "civilian building and reconstruction efforts" they could be doing to help out OUR country. It is not our job to fix everyone else's mess, especially if they won't help us help them!! The amount of lives and money that have been spent on these two wars is obscene. Let's stop the bleeding both literally and financially right now. It would be nice if Obama kept at least one promise and brought the troops home shortly after taking office. He didn't do that but he can do it now, now that we are not going to let the troops fight the Taliban, Al Quaeda, or any other terrorist that crops up in the Middle East.
I think of those families that have lost sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters, boyfriends, and friends to these "wars." My heart goes out to them. They will have no victory to make them feel a little better about their sacrifices. All they will have is a gravestone and a folded American Flag to remind them their loved one put their trust in our government to do the right thing and not send them to die for no good reason. Heartbreaking. Devastating. Maddening to the 10th power.
America has so many issues at home right now; we could deploy our troops on our own behalf. We have a southern border that is like a free flowing river of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. That has to stop. Put some marine battalions armed with weapons, and the authorization to use them, along that border and that river would run dry pretty darn quick. We have a natural disaster of epic proportions in the Gulf of Mexico. The Army could help out building berms, sand bags, oil booms, Perhaps someone in our military has some knowledge that is better than the lame "know how" BP executives have used thus far to try and contain this gusher. Our armed forces are stretched very thin. Many of the troops have served multiple deployments and deserve a break and to come home now.
Enough is enough. Tail between our legs or not, we are done there. We have to be done. The commanders in chief didn't allow our military to use any force necessary to get the job done, so we in essence tied their hands behind their backs and expected them to still win a (2) wars. We have so many weapons and systems in our arsenal that did not see the light of day in these wars because of political correctness. We were afraid of what they would think of us! Is that not the most ridiculous thing you ever heard? How do you win a war by singing Cumbaya with your enemy? If we were not prepared to have civilian casualties when we did our bombings, we should not have gone there in the first place. This enemy places civilians in high value target areas so they will be killed by US bombing raids. This serves to sway world opinion against the US. I don't think the world could have a lower opinion of us anyway.
Should we care about the world's opinion of the US? Maybe not, but the thing we need to worry about is when the US is losing war after war, our enemies may not FEAR us anymore. That will embolden terrorists to strike at us both overseas and at home. That will make our enemies seem stronger and us weaker. We have a lot of work to do to get back our old image of the lone Superpower in the world. Though. it may never happen, I fear.
There is no good answer here other than our troops are getting killed for no good reason. The people don't want to work together or to defend themselves so we need to leave it alone and go home. The time has come, Mr. Commander in Chief!
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