President Obama is cranking up the conflict in
Afghanistan by adding a substantial number of
young able Americans to the fight for freedom in
that war torn country. Freedom is not a tradition
in a country that is habitually in conflict and they
have been murdering each other for centuries,
It is cultural.
Afghanistan, not unlike the United States , has
come to regard war as a cost for doing business.
LIke the U.S. they are dependent upon war to
move the economy along. This is a result of centuries
of tribal rule. If a tribe next door attacks you there
is a brutal economic and territorial war declared.
You gain, they lose economically and politically.
We are simply a tribe that came from a greater
distance with an enormous handicap. Our
understanding of the culture is practically nil
and the cost is an enormous drag on an already
crippled U.S. economy. The increase in troop strength
will result in more and better trained combatants
on the other side.
This escalation will elevate the ugly American
to the new status of invader.Using a phrase
from a most distinguished orator George Bush,
" This is a crusade". This ignorant phrase
put a religious twist to our efforts that we will
never shed. From a pheasants viewpoint we
may as well be knights on white horses who have
come to pillage, rape and murder the citizens of
Afghanistan.
No it is not VietNam where there was a unified
resistance to the French and later to the United
States. VietNam was not a cultural war it was
political and the populace was fully aware of
this. We like the French never had a chance
of real victory and occupation was never an option.
The great difference between the two conflicts
is glaring. To use a trite phrase it is like comparing
grapes to raisins. Yes there is a unified resistance
but in Afghanistan it is only as far as you can reach
out and pay the nearest unemployed person money
to kill Americans.
In VietNam it was expansive from border to
border people would fight for months living
on fish heads and a small personal bag of rice.
It was an idealistic cause.
There is not this total unification in Afghanistan it
is a fragmented cause, tribal, religious, territorial and
sometimes so localized that even brothers are
fighting and killing each other. The predictability of
the outcome farther than 50 miles from you is
impossible . There are no resources of any
value to support a stable economy, the political
resources are corrupt and ineffective. It is
impossible and foolish to set a date for a
pullout of American troops.
The most logical conclusion is that we should
pull out now since there is not chance of depositing
the seeds of democracy in Afghanistan . I
support our troops in their efforts to hunt
down and kill the leaders and operatives who
were responsible for 9-11. I do not see any
logical reason to establish a puppet government
as we have done in Iraq.
Pull out and use the technology that we have
developed, drones and selective bombing. Use
special units to penetrate any country that harbors
these devils and destroy them no matter the location.
Ignore civilian casualties since the body count
will be substantially less on both sides.
