We Win, We Lose, We Play the Game
This post contains outdated information. I only remove harmful content and try to keep old posts visible — even if they're embarrassing. I want to look back and see my growth over the years, and don't want to hide it from others. Thanks for considering this as you read. (comment or contact me to request an update about its subject matter)
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’s 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. The narrative was “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 semi-secret war against Islam. It may as well be the Jedi versus the Sith with how dramatic the media has made it seem.
We allegedly went to Afghanistan for freedom, justice, democracy, liberty, and the American way — trying to save these people from the death, destruction, fear, and loss that their oppressive environments trap them into. How’s that going?
| Find Osama Bin Laden | ❌ |
| Vanquish Al Qaeda | ❌ |
| Eliminate the Taliban | ❌ |
| American Civilians are Safe | ❌ |
| Afghan Civilians are Safe | ❌ |
| Halliburton Profits | ✅ |
The U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have been estimated to have caused over one million casualties. And this war continues to rage on today. Peaceful Afghan citizens are in more danger now than they were before under American occupation. Innocent civilians are dying every day. The Taliban isn’t bombing their cities nearly as much as we are.
The ostensible legal basis on which American troops are in Afghanistan is the “Authorization for Use of Military Force”, the joint resolution passed by the US Congress on September 18, 2001—one week after 9/11. The resolution authorized military force for the purpose of capturing or destroying the Al Qaeda leadership, beginning with bin Laden, so as to prevent further terrorist attacks.
The U.S. Department of Defense
Now, all I ever hear about is U.S. troops fighting against insurgents.
Insurgent (n)
Dictionary.com
1.) a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially a rebel not recognized as a belligerent.
An insurgent is not a terrorist. It’s not someone who’s dangerous to people on the other side of the planet from them. It’s a person who’s dangerous to a governing force that they find oppressive or disagreeable. In the context of Afghan insurgents, they’re only dangerous to our troops because our troops are in their country threatening their lives in some way. I never wanted an invasion and occupation of foreign soil just so American soldiers could die in self defense against the people we’re occupying. We’re 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’s 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-level security active at all times. And we still haven’t closed down Guantanamo Bay.
If I hired a hit man to kill my enemy and he charged me a hundred dollars a month to “continue the search” for this person… I’d 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 most Americans do. We have friends and family in the armed forces, many in Afghanistan or Iraq right now. And even for those 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 gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Dwight Eisenhower – Chance For Peace Speech (April 16, 1953)
Every soldier I’ve met fights so they can one day return home to their family and friends knowing they made their loved ones 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 like we’ve 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).
Combat Readiness
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
Deployment stressors and exposure to combat result in considerable risks of mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, substance abuse, impairment in social functioning and in the ability to work, and the increased use of health care services… at least 6 percent of all U.S. military service members on active duty receive treatment for a mental disorder each year.
Deployment of personnel to military operations: impact on mental health and social functioning
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 don’t 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’re not allowed to educate themselves and can’t find justice in any form. The Taliban are a terrible enemy deserving of punishment and removal from power (ironic link).
NATO stated that it had evidence that the Taliban forced civilians into buildings likely to be targeted by NATO aircraft involved in the battle.
This was a deliberate plan by the Taliban to create a civilian casualty crisis. These were not human shields; these were human sacrifices. We have intelligence that points to this.”
A spokesman for General David D. McKiernan, NATO’s Afghanistan commander (Relevant Story)
We are providing fuel for their fire. Our operations in Afghanistan are doing nothing to slow their recruitment. We’re making new enemies with every bullet we fire over there. We’re creating orphans with the most pure and absolute reasons to hate us with every bomb we drop. I’d 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’s been using to fight our wars. Since then, what’s changed? Has anyone been held responsible for the war crimes and human rights atrocities committed in our name? Most of the people in positions of power when all of it was happening are better off now than before their crimes!
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 filter their news any way the Pentagon wants them to. They make the decisions to cover or not to cover these stories.
Corporate media in the United States is interested primarily in entertainment news to feed their bottom-line priorities. Some of the most important news stories that should reach the American public falls on the cutting room floor to be replaced by sex-scandals and celebrity updates.
Peter Phillips, Director of the Censored 2008 Yearbook project
Even artists who speak out against the wars are being suppressed — their careers put in jeopardy or abruptly ended. I don’t even want to think about all the small unsigned bands that get ‘blackballed’ before they can even emerge on the national scene.
People like Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, The Beatles and Pete Seeger were constantly writing and talking about what was going on. That’s not happening now. As of this spring, there have been virtually no anti-war concerts – or anti-war songs that catch on, for that matter.
Elton John, July 2004
How are we supposed to trust our government to tell us what an intelligence report says or when we’re threatened by an enemy if they won’t even let us speak out against their actions on the rare occasion we hear about them? If their intentions were pure and their arguments were valid, they’d 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’s 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 Americans can stop having our library books monitored, our internet usage logged, and our shoes taken off at the airport? Is it a safer life for the average American? If any of these were true, we wouldn’t be pursuing these wars at all. We’d definitely not be pursuing them using these methods.
From 1979, the U.S. government funded and supplied an Islamic insurgency to overthrow an Afghan government backed by the Soviet Union. In the 1990’s, the Clinton White House encouraged its Pakistani ally to help install the Taliban in Kabul in the belief it would be favorable to the aspirations of US companies to win control of major oil and gas projects in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian states, and build pipelines through Afghanistan.
Operation Cyclone
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’re all willfully distracted by Tiger Woods, the Catholic Church, the recession, healthcare reform, or whatever is going on with Angelina Jolie. The reality that’s spoon-fed to us by the media is a delusion masking the horrible truth that America is an imperialist nation.
It’s time to stop quibbling about what they want us to care about and to begin making real strides towards true peace. In the nearly 27 years I’ve been alive, I 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 four years of real peace in America. No bombings, no new embargoes, no covert military actions. If we have peace for four years, I’ll vote for every incumbent politician I can. I’ll happily pay my income tax each of those years and not write a single blog complaining about it. I’ll eat my Tennessee Titans baseball cap with ketchup.
I’ve been conditioned to believe that this’ll never happen. Asking for four years of peace in America is like asking a two-year-old kid to be silent for ten minutes. He’ll swear up and down that he can do it, he might even try, but about 90 seconds in he’ll blurt something out because he just can’t help himself.
How can a nation that’s constantly and shamelessly profiting from murder ever be safe?
