We Win, We Lose, We Play the Game

How much do we know about the war in Afghanistan? Why are we allowing our government to send our young men and women over there to die? What are my tax dollars paying for?

Our Just Cause

We went into Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden. That is what I was told by my elected leaders. I disagreed with the invasion of foreign soil immediately but, as I am used to, I was ignored by my congressmen and senators. I would love to see Osama Bin Laden face justice as much as anyone, but I don’t believe in turning a hunt for one man into a full-scale foreign war.

We went to Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all the people supporting them. We’re the good guys fighting the sneaky evil doers that hide in caves and plot the cowardly terrorist acts that plague our country. To some this is a small part of our large secret war against Islam. It may as well be the Jedi versus the Sith with how dramatic the media has made it seem.

We went to Afghanistan for freedom, justice, democracy, liberty, and the American way. We are trying to save these people from the death, destruction, fear, and loss that their oppressive environments trap them into.

 

Find Osama Bin Laden	No
Vanquish Al Qaeda	No
Eliminate the Taliban	No
American Civilians are Safe	No
Afghan Civilians are Safe	No
Halliburton Profits	Yes

 

The U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have been estimated to have caused over one million — 1,000,000 — casualties. And this war continues to rage on today. Peaceful Afghan citizens are in more danger now than they were before because of American soldiers. Innocent civilians are dying every single day. The Taliban isn’t bombing their cities nearly as much as we are.

Now, all I ever hear about is U.S. troops fighting against insurgents.

An insurgent is NOT a terrorist. It is not a person who is dangerous to people on the other side of the planet from them. It is a person who is dangerous to a governing force that they find oppressive or disagreeable. In the context of Afghan insurgents, they are only dangerous to our troops because our troops are in their country threatening their lives in some way. I didn’t authorize an invasion and occupation of foreign soil just so American soldiers could die in self defense against the people we’re occupying. We are a cancer on Afghanistan, and its own civilian population has taken up arms in effort to fight the infection that is our occupation.

I haven’t seen an Al Qaeda leader arrested or killed since 2007. If we aren’t doing the job that we authorized these military actions for, then they shouldn’t have authorization anymore.

It has been nearly a decade of war, death, recession, and human rights violations now. What do we have to show for it? We still have nuts with bombs in their shoes/pants/etc. attempting to terrorize U.S. citizens. We have sullied our country’s image in the eyes of every other sovereign nation. We have an out of control media that distorts truth into propaganda for our people. We have a widening margin between the rich and impoverished. We have The Great Recession. We have body scanners and police state quality security active at all times. And we still haven’t closed down Guantanamo Bay.

If I hired a hit man to kill an enemy of mine and he charged me a hundred dollars a month to “continue the search” for this person… I would figure out before ten years went by that I should probably cut my losses and worry about all the other problems I have in my life.

Our Soldiers

I support our troops. I think everyone in America does. We all have friends and family that are in the armed forces, many of them in Afghanistan or Iraq right now. And even for those of us who don’t know someone in particular, it only takes an ounce of compassion to appreciate what they give to us. How are we treating them, though?

Every soldier I’ve met fights so that he can one day return home to their family and friends knowing that they made the people he or she loves safer. We are hammered with propaganda every day telling us that this is the goal in Afghanistan, but how much safer do you feel now than you did in 2001? It seems to me like we have been getting progressively LESS safe every moment we spend occupying another sovereign nation. Add to this the state of our country within our borders since this massive clusterfuck war began, and what exactly are our troops coming home to?

While we have millions of people over here distracted by Healthcare debates and a massive recession, few realize that the wars we keep getting pushed into by our government are to blame. We spend billions upon billions of dollars, decades of scientific research, tons of natural resources and thousands of lives to send troops to dust bowls on the other side of the globe while their families back home are having their homes foreclosed on, going bankrupt from medical bills, and being ignored by the government that is supposed to serve them. All the while banks, insurance companies, and other huge companies siphon record profits from the poor (formerly middle class).

And what about the conditions we force our soldiers to fight in? Pilots in the Air Force have to take “go pills” to function under the stresses of constant combat readiness. When they can’t sleep that night, they have to take Ambien. There is an interesting portion about drug use in the military in Bigger, Stronger, Faster (Netflix) (Amazon), a documentary about drug policy in America focusing on performance enhancers.

Anyone who truly supports the troops, wants them to come home, be given proper healthcare and be able to live comfortably.

Our Methods

The Taliban commit terrible acts of Human Rights abuse. Civilians are oppressed, targeted with violence, and killed for doing nothing more than going to schools that do not use Taliban teachings. Women in Afghanistan are considered sub-human and are given little to no rights even against the men who rape and murder them. They are not allowed to educate themselves and cannot find justice in any form. They are a terrible enemy and they are deserving of punishment and removal from power (ironic link).

We are providing fuel for their fire. Our operations in Afghanistan are doing nothing to slow their recruitment. We are making new enemies with every bullet we fire over there. We are creating orphans with the most pure and absolute reasons to hate us with every bomb we drop. I would rather admit “defeat” than help the Taliban’s recruitment and put more money in Dick Cheney’s pockets at the cost of American lives.

I wrote an article about a year ago that spoke about the methods that America has been using to fight their wars. Since then, what has changed? Has anyone been held responsible for the war crimes and human rights atrocities we committed? Most of the people in positions of power when all of it was happening are better off now than they were before their crimes.

Our Ethics & Oversight

If you read non-American and independent news feeds, you probably hear about civilian casualties, uncovered lies, secret torture chambers, and other scandals going down in Afghanistan much more than people who watch their news on television. American media outlets like CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and nearly every “Newspaper” news company filters their news any way the Pentagon wants them to. They make the decisions to cover or not to cover these stories.

Even artists that speak out against the wars are being suppressed. Artists that speak out against war or other government policy have their careers put in jeopardy or even abruptly ended. I don’t even want to think about all the small unsigned bands that get ‘black balled’ before they can even emerge on the national scene.

How are we supposed to trust our government to tell us what an intelligence report says or when we are threatened by an enemy if they won’t even let us speak out against them? If their intentions were pure and their arguments were valid, they would meet opposition with debate and compromise, not censorship. How are we as citizens and voters supposed to know who to elect if they all protect each other and cover up every bit of truth that doesn’t directly favor them? The current administration likes to speak about improving transparency for banking and healthcare, but they aren’t willing to reveal their own dirty laundry… or serve justice to their cohorts when their laundry stinks up our country.

Our Goal

What is the light at the end of this tunnel? Is it Osama Bin Laden’s head on a pike? Is it an enormous thank you card signed by the people of Iraq and Afghanistan for saving them from the evil doers? Is it a time in the future when we Americans can stop having our Library Books monitored, our internet use logged, and our shoes taken off at the airport? Is it a safer life for the average American citizen? If any of these were true, we would not be pursuing these wars at all. We would definitely not be pursuing them using the methods we have been.

It doesn’t take much research to see the logical and inhuman reasons we were forced into this war. This was not The Evil George W. Bush being a megalomaniac. This atrocity crosses party lines in what is probably the ONLY truly bi-partisan objective. The most powerful old rich white men in the world have padded their pockets with cash soaked in the blood of young, poor and middle class Americans. And we are ALL guilty. We are all willfully distracted by Tiger Woods, the Catholic Church, the Recession, Healthcare Reform, or whatever is going on with Angelina Jolie. The reality that is spoon-fed to us by the media is a delusion masking the horrible truth that America is an Imperialist Nation.

It is time to stop quibbling about what they want you to care about and to begin making real strides towards true peace. In the nearly 27 years I’ve been alive a can’t remember a time when we weren’t bombing someone. The conspiracy theorists that talk about the Military Industrial Complex seem less and less nuts all the time.

All I ask is that we have 4 years of real peace in America. No bombings, no new embargoes, no covert military actions. If we have peace for four years, I will vote for EVERY incumbent politician I can. I will happily pay my income tax each of those years and not write a single blog complaining about it. I will eat my Tennessee Titans baseball cap with ketchup. I’ve been conditioned to believe that this will never happen here though. Asking for four years of peace in America is like asking a 2 year old kid to be silent for ten minutes. He’ll swear up and down that he can do it, he’ll probably even try, but about 90 seconds in he’ll blurt something out because he just can’t help himself.

How can we ever be safe when we are an entire nation that is shamelessly profiting from murder?