For all intents and purposes, we are now at war in Afganistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. And we are getting our asses kicked all over the place. However anyone felt about these wars, you have to admit that the best way to look at the situation is the here and now. Drop all pretenses of good and bad, whether we should even be there in the first place, whether we have a moral right to try to protect the citizens of earth from fanatics and royalists no matter what boarders they live within.. come down to a purely military way of looking at what is happening. If you laid out what is happening with our army on a Risk board, and you were playing our allied troops, you would basically just be waiting for someone to finally decimate you so you can go watch tv.
Yesterday I read about we were paying insiders to bribe the Taliban and Warlords to get the civilian contracted trucks of supplies into the troops. Meaning we are giving millions and millions to our enemy. When I first heard this a paranoid voice in the back of my head started jabbering about the military industrial complex starting a war and keeping it going by paying both sides. Of course, it was nothing so grand. Just the stupid, fucked up, dog and pony show of a war that we are running.
I believe in leaving a more just society than we invaded and replaced. Believing in something as an ideal does not make it so. I would like to see us put some kind of democracy in place... all the valid dreams we dream here in the states. The reasons we keep thinking we have to fight -- because, well, someone has to and we have the biggest army.... and say what you want about multi-cultural ism, when you have institutionalized brutality for women and minorities that extends to burkas and keeping them out of schools, that is a form of slavery to the Law that should be FORCED on no one.
Unfortunately, in our pursuit of whatever goals these wars had -- I kind of understood Afghanistan, and Saddam was the first of what will be many wars over the middle east and nuclear weapons, more than likely... --- we have ignited a religion against us that transcends boarders, and is willing to brutalize the civilian population in ways we don't (normally speaking). This week, a doctor, raised in america and schooled in radical Islam, shot 13 soldiers at Fort Hood while screaming God is great. Our intent, we keep saying, is not to go to war with Muslims, just the terrorists. Unfortunately, the terrorists are the tip of the ice berg, obviously; they are not isolated, lone wolfs, they are the product of cultures that hate the US for even being in the middle east, and are willing to believe the wildest shit about why we are there.
What we have done in the middle east will have a lasting effect. For good and bad. I just hope that we do not end up staying merely to protect unpopular puppets in armed encampments.
I say pull out all the troops. Start no new bases in Iraq. Create good will by saying, we have done what we could, and since we do not have the support of the civilians, we are leaving. The choice is yours. Hell, let them vote about it. Let them vote us out. Give them a voice in their own destiny, and the good will we buy will be lasting.
Spend the wars money developing alternative forms of energy so we are no longer reliant on the middle east.
The Generals of course want more troops. They see how they are surrounded. Maybe they could fight their way across these three countries. At what cost, and why? To win? There are not going to be any winners in this war. Period. All we are deciding now is how many more losers there are going to be, on our side and theirs -- the losers of lives, fathers, mothers, sons... limbs, sanity, childhoods, educations, marriages... Polls are showing the people in Afganistan are back to wanting the Taliban again, because of the chaos we have caused - just letting Opium production shoot up again killed our credibility dead in the water with a lot of people.
We owe it to ourselves now to stop Bush's War. We are trying to save Face now. Honor our dead by claiming them some victory. I think they would be honored more by the lives saved by removing US forces from the middle east.
I hardly trust Osama Bin Laden, but he is a trend setter over there. One of his last messages said that if we leave, and stop supporting Israel, that they will leave us alone. Whether this is true or not, the fighters in Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan will leave us alone because we will not be there.
The best way to support the troops now is to begin asking the powers that be to stop all fighting, and begin negotiating -- I mean, if the guys driving our trucks of food to the soldiers know the Taliban well enough to pay them off to use the road, we can obviously find these guys and start talks. I am sure there are some now somewhere off the map. What the hell? See if they will agree to cease fire if we let the countries vote on our presence. Show them a little democracy, tip our hats and go.
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