Bushes Afghan, What NOT to Wear

 

Sit down, get ready, because here it comes.  President Bush did something right.  Whew, there I said it, I admit it, and I am not ashamed of it, and don’t ask me to say it again.  Oh, what is it you are wondering that he did right?  President Bush invaded Afghanistan with a clear purpose and mission, first, to break up the Taliban, second, to disable the Al-Qaeda organization, and third, to capture Osama Bin Laden.  Well, as Meatloaf said, two outta three ain’t bad.  I will give credit where credit is due.  After 9/11 the president took charge, the enemy was clear and we knew where they were.  The Taliban was harboring the criminals, Al-Qaeda, who were responsible for the atrocities of 9/11, they were allowing the Al-Qaeda to run terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and we put a stop to it. We succeeded in dismantling the Taliban and reduced Al-Qaida to a mere shadow of what it once was.  For that I give President Bush credit.  But President Bush did make one mistake though.  He failed in capturing Osama Bin Laden.  He diverted our resources to Iraq and did not complete the mission set out at hand.  Now I could go into all the recent reports of how we had Bin Laden cornered and let him slip through our fingers at Tora Bora, or the speculation that President Bush may have let Bin Laden go on purpose because if he actually captured him there would have been less of a justification to invade Iraq in the first place to get rid of fictitious weapons of mass destruction and line the pockets of Haliburton and Blackwater.  So I won’t mention those things, because that is really not what this article is about.  What it is about is what is going on today.  To be more specific, it is about President Obama’s recent announcement to send in 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and increase our presence there to around 90,000 troops.

To put it simply, this is a mistake.  I do not support President Obama’s decision to increase troops and escalate this war.  I hope to G-d he proves me and everyone else wrong because if he succeeds we will all win.  The problem is I do not see how success is possible.  I think the president is misguided. To have a troop buildup in Afghanistan at this time is unnecessary.  If anything we should be pulling our troops out with possibly a small UN coalition left behind for observation only.  Before 9/11 the Taliban were not our enemy. They did not bother us and we did not bother them.  Then 9/11 happened and we had reason to retaliate against them.  They were harboring the criminals that attacked us, Al-Qaeda.  Today the Taliban are no longer in power.  Today the Taliban that are left are not harboring Al-Qaeda and are not letting Al-Qaeda run terrorist training camps.  The Taliban were defeated 8 years ago, are no longer in power, and Al-Qaeda has been reduced to a shell of what once existed.  The only thing left to do is capture Osama Bin Laden and what ever is left of the Al-Qaeda high command, and most intelligence organizations agree that they are most likely in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.  These days Osama Bin Laden is probably running a falafel bar just outside of Islamabad and Al-Qaeda is just his side job.  We do not need 90,000 troops and an estimated $30 billion extra dollars this year alone on top of what is already being spent for this war to find and capture the remaining Al-Qaeda terrorists, not to mention the additional U.S. lives that will lost in this action.  According to iCasualties.org, to date we have already lost 1533 soldiers in Afghanistan, with 486 this year alone, the highest number in a single year since the war started. And in Iraq we have lost 4685 soldiers, and since this war started 31,557 soldiers have been wounded.  These numbers do not take into account the men and women who are suffering from PTSS, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, or the civilian workers in Iraq who have been killed, (about 456) or wounded. The money that is being spent on both of these wars is being diverted from where it needs to be spent, here at home.  We have a country that is falling apart.  We have infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt.  We have businesses that need loans to survive.  We have people loosing there homes to foreclosure, school systems that can’t afford books, supplies or to pay there teachers what they deserve.  We have school buildings that need to be rebuilt.  We have sky rocketing unemployment and we have men, women and children who are dying because of lack of health care.  We have police forces that need to hire more officers but can’t afford to.  Last year in Chicago alone we had 509 homicides, 38 of them being with in the Chicago public schools.  In Iraq we had 486 U.S. fatalities in our armed forces.  It was safer for a soldier to be in Iraq last year then it was for him or her to be in Chicago.   Here is where we need the rebuilding. Here is where the real human tragedy exists and here is where we need to focus our efforts.  We need to stop being the world’s policemen and start cleaning up our own back yard.  President Obama I do not support this action.  You promised us and the world change.  Now prove it.