(This is a rant, not a funny article, so skip this one if you don’t want to read a rant.)
My thinking on this issue has been the same for a long time: What the hell are we doing there “nation-building” when we need to do nation-building here at home in the United States? After all, America’s infrastructure is crumbling and falling apart! Remember when all the Democrats were attacking President Bush after Katrina because he was spending all our tax money in Iraq fighting some unnecessary war of choice over there, when he should have been spending that money here in America helping Americans? And they (the Democrats) were right to slam him about that! But now, Obama is still fighting the same wars, with a couple of new ones to boot! (< Libya and Yemen, specifically. Oh; plus, there’s the drone campaign over Pakistan, so I guess that’s really five wars.) And New Orleans still needs help. Oh, and I almost forgot (Actually, I didn’t, but I guess Washington did, or would like to!): There are now all the victims of the Mississippi River floods in the Midwest, plus the tornado victims in a number of states, and the victims of the massive wildfire in Arizona! All of these people who have lost their homes need help too, and while President Obama has pledged help for them, where is it going to come from? Between the wars, his stimulus plans, and all the bloated government salaries and pensions, they’ve bankrupted the country! We’re the biggest debtor nation in history now, and there’s literally no money left! (I'm surprised that someone like Glenn Beck didn't come out and say: "President Obama doesn't care about white people!" Oh, wait: He did! Never mind... {Actually, he didn't say it in those words exactly; but you remember, right? He said Obama hates white people. Oops! Um, "You're fired!"})
(For those of you out there who would read this and hate me for attacking President Obama, and then look at all the other times I make fun of liberals, I want you to understand one thing: I am making fun of liberals for the simple reason that they are in charge of the country right now. When the Republicans take over next, and the conservatives start messing things up again, I will deride them mercilessly also. So not to worry, I’m not an ideologue. {After all, I supported Obama in his run for the presidency, as ashamed as I am now to admit it! I’m one of those people with “buyers remorse”!} But for those of you in attack-dog mode whenever you hear someone criticize President Obama: even you have to admit, he’s seriously out of hand, doing all the same abuses of power he criticized Bush for doing, only even more extreme this time! {Plus, the Libya "action" really is an "illegal war" in a way the Iraq war never was! It may have been unnecessary, and a bad idea, but Iraq wasn't technically illegal. Congress voted to authorize Bush to take action, so there you are. But Obama didn't even bother to clear Libya with congress because he thinks he's above the law. And rather than try to get authorization before the 60-day period was up, he just skirted the issue and tried to say the law doesn't apply to him. Whatever! Now that's an abuse of power! And if we let it stand, then the next president, perhaps a Republican next time, can start all the wars they want willy-nilly without any congressional approval, and they will get away with it too, because Obama set the precedent, and nobody did anything about it then, so... Power is never curtailed, it is only expanded. And Obama has a responsibility to make sure he doesn't open the door for more abuses of power by later office-holders. But is he? No! He's not!} Even Daniel Ellsberg* says Obama is the worst president ever for transparency issues! Don’t believe me? Then read it for yourself!:
See? Sure, the news media who like Obama try to run interference about this stuff, but they’re seriously doing the country a disservice when they do that, in addition to being guilty of journalistic malpractice. Seriously, shame on those guys for not keeping the public adequately informed! {BTW: These stories were not on the top of any list of news stories; I had to find them by accident at the bottom of another story about Weinergate in the "more stories like this" section.} Surely it's a bad thing for the country when anybody abuses power like that, right? Then there's a precedent set for the next guy to abuse power like that again, but to take it even further! But they don't want us to know about it when a Democrat does it. Jerks! But they're all power-mad politicians, regardless of party!)
So why are we still fighting in Afghanistan again? Because Al Qaida attacked us? They’re not there anymore! We’re fighting the Taliban now, and we have been for years at this point! But they didn’t attack us! WTF? Sure, I know they gave Al Qaida a “safe haven” to plan the attacks, etc., but they didn’t actually attack us themselves.
I have often wondered why the Taliban would have permitted Al Qaida to plan an attack against the United States like 9/11, when we were ostensibly allies at the time, but I think I have this all figured out now. It didn’t make sense to me at first that the Taliban would let bin Laden, et. al., attack America when they knew it would bring American vengeance raining down upon their heads. Then I thought: “What, were they bored from not having to fight the Soviets anymore?” And then it hit me: of course, that’s it! Well, not necessarily that they’re bored, but that when people become bored, they begin doing all kinds of things they might not otherwise be doing, like thinking about sex and materialism and stuff. You know: idle hands do the devil's work. Get the picture? And there's not a lot of stuff to do in Afghanistan during peacetime, especially under a brutally controlling regime like the Taliban. So how could an ultra-conservative, hyper-religious group keep everyone in line if they were all totally free to do and think whatever they wanted? This, I think is what really happened: The war with the Soviet Union ended, and the people started getting restless, thinking and doing, or wanting to do, things that were outside the realm of their strict, religious lifestyle. So, how do you control stuff like that? Well, obviously with keeping them busy with a holy war! That will keep them on the straight and narrow! Oh, and it also provides another enemy for the people to focus their rage upon, other than the Taliban government.
So then they must fight the infidel to keep everyone in line and under their authority! But how to do it? They were allies with the US, and Europe was too far away and too pacifist to be reliable enough to bother attacking. So what to do? Oh, I know! They could just invite bin Laden back and let him plan attacks that would inevitably get them attacked eventually in retaliation! Then they could have their endless holy war back, and they could finally keep everyone in line again, since jihad and martyrdom is their highest aim in life. This, honestly, is what I think happened. And we fell for it! And we’re still there, fighting these guys who aren’t really in a position to attack us at home anyway. (Ah-duh-y!)
Well, they got what they wanted. But wouldn’t the best strategy be to deny them the holy war that they want, and need, to keep everyone hyper-religious and jihady? It would also serve our purposes best, too. Then we could bring the troops home just in case we need them for other defense-related purposes. Oh, and we could save a lot of money, too, which I hear is kinda scarce now. But like George Orwell said: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” (This applies to both sides fighting this war.) That way you can keep everyone busy and stay in control while you do all kinds of other underhanded stuff. You know, like our government has been doing for years, giving themselves raises and all kinds of benefits, legalizing bribery by calling it “lobbying” and “campaign donations”, and spending us into bankruptcy through spending programs and tax cuts designed to buy votes! You know, that stuff.
I’m not a peacenik or a hippie, but this Afghan war is not getting us anywhere but dug into a hole. (Iraq too, for that matter! Didn't we win that one? Are we staying in hopes that we still might end up losing somehow?) What say we end them and get back to fixing our own country? (Or you can call it “cut and run” if you like. Whatever works for you. Let’s just do it! Please.) President Obama: if you end the wars, you can blame them on Bush again! But as of now, they’re yours!
My exit strategy would be the following: Pull everyone out and bring them home, and leave the Afghans with this ultimatum: "We're leaving now. We wish you all well and hope for the best for your future; but if you attack us again, or if you give safe haven to other terrorist groups that attack us in the future and we trace it back to you guys, we will retaliate with bombs next time, not ground troops; and these bombs will kill all of you, and your entire country will be obliterated! So have a nice day, and best wishes for your continued success. But your safety lies with you." (And besides, the Afghans didn't follow the Soviets home to attack them after that war was over, so they probably won't do it to us, either.)
* (For those of you who don’t know, Daniel Ellsberg is the guy who released The Pentagon Papers. But if he did that now, he’d probably be treated like Bradley Manning, rather than celebrated. And by a Democratic president too! Oh, the irony!)
