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Afghanistan trap
By Murray Cohen
Publisher, Delphos Herald
It appears that President Obama may not resist making the same mistake that was made by previous presidents who have ignored General MacArthur’s advice to President Kennedy. He said to stay out of land wars in Asia. George Washington would have given the same advice.
The Soviet Union, second most powerful nation in the world and bordering on Afghanistan, finally decided it was in its own nation’s best interest to skedaddle out of the place. Other countries have done that previously.
It would be more possible to conduct war and peace-making/nation-building in that ancient place if it were on our borders instead of 6,000 miles from here. But even that didn’t help the Soviet war machine.
It is a sickening feeling that we are going to go through the same scenario that we have known for so long — in Vietnam and Iraq. A top American general in Afghanistan recently contacted a respected author of a book on the Vietnam war and asked what lessons could be used in Afghanistan that we learned from Vietnam. The answer was that we never should have been there in the first place.
We don’t have to have vastly more American troops in that country to continue — as we must — to hunt down the perpetrators of 9/11 and their allies throughout the world.
If we are going to be sending thousands more troops into Afghanistan, I would prefer it would be pay-as-you go. Double the taxes on all individual earnings over $1,000,000 and corporate taxes over $1 billion dollars to pay for the war and also to pay for the $4-plus trillion dollars that Iraq war will have cost us. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s statement that no country should go to war until the previous war has been paid for.
As I said about the Iraq war, rather than send members of our armed forces back for three or more tours of duty, I’d rather see a draft and my personal preference would be for the first ones drafted to be the sons of millionaires and sons of the thousands of top politicians in the country. Let’s see how they like riding the dangerous roads of what is often a frozen — and corrupt — wasteland.
So what can we do to keep that country from again becoming a staging ground for attacks on the United States? My own view is that we should finance forces there and Pakistan that are friendly to us. Give them the money and the weapons to deal with those who would harm our country.
George Bush and Dick Cheney, with their Iraq war did more to recruit terrorists from among the billion Moslems than anyone or anything else — to their eternal shame. If we are going to forcibly do nation-building in Afghanistan, President Obama will be doing the same.
Even if our European allies were to send several times as much manpower and treasure as they have to help us in Afghanistan, we cannot rebuild a place in our image that has never been a country as we know a country to be.
Frankly, I don’t know what the answer is and I would support anything we can do to bring about a democratic and peaceful nation there, as long as it does not involve sending tens of thousands, which could lead to hundreds of thousands of America’s youth to spill its blood there. All the while that millions of American homeowners (many of whom are veterans) are in danger of foreclosure, all the while that our national debt is growing to once-thought catastrophic levels, all the while that state and city institutions, including law enforcement organizations- are not getting the funds they need, all the while that billions of infrastructure repairs are being delayed or constructed with funds borrowed from China, and all the while that we are doing pitifully little to keep our industrial jobs from leaving our country.
*****
I am reminded of a statement that a man who gave his views on maintaining a long-term marriage. He said, “When your wife asks you to do something, do it right away because you’ll end up doing it anyway.” Sooner or later, we will be leaving Afghanistan and I’d rather see us do this before we have spent trillions, before thousands more Americans die or come home with loss of limb and eyesight. Before we go another decade of not doing enough to tend to our duties to our own beloved country.
#1 — Added 3 months, 1 week ago
Sticking one’s tail between your legs and running has never been the American way. I think that there should be some notice of all the troops that feel this is a just cause. Maybe they see something that your don’t? Like not wanting their families blown up on our soil from radical religious groups that hate us? Ok, let’s sit down and talk to them over a nice cup of tea. It is easy to point fingers when you aren’t aware of the facts. May I suggest that you research General McCrystal’ strategies, the history and teachings of the Muslim religion and talk to some young people about why they want to join the military? Bet they’ve done their homework.
Posted on December 3, 2009 at 6:52 am by Kate Eglan-Garton