Hamid Karzai

Eleven Years Of War In Afghanistan And Counting: For What?

Ronald Leave a comment

Today marks ELEVEN years of US combat in Afghanistan, with over 2,000 Americans killed, and thousands more wounded, many severely.

George W. Bush messed up the whole involvement from the beginning, and it took nearly a decade to kill Osama Bin Laden, and weaken Al Qaeda dramatically, although they still exist in other nations in the area.

But the Taliban threat remains a power in Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai is one of the most corrupt foreign leaders we deal with, and is not even appreciative of American and NATO involvement and sacrifice! Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta expressed the total disgust of our nation with Karzai, and his constant criticisms of America, while he has done nothing to make life better for his people, particularly the women living under a medieval standard of behavior!

Barack Obama is committed to withdrawing in 2014, but the case can be made that if he wins reelection, he should speed up the withdrawal to end a year early, as Afghanistan is a nation that seems hopeless to reform, at the high cost of American lives and treasure.

It is impossible to accept that this is, by far, the longest war in American history, and it is time to declare it over, and bring the men and women home for good!

Time For Withdrawal From Afghanistan Pronto!

Ronald Leave a comment

America has been committed to war in Afghanistan now for more than ten years, since October 7, 2001, in reaction to the Al Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

1,912 soldiers have been killed, and America has been assisted by a group of allies, most significantly Great Britain, in trying to overcome the Taliban and other terrorist forces that remain in that country.

But we are not winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan population, and we have done tremendous damage in loss of life and physical destruction without any real sign of progress.

Afghanistan was the bane of Alexander the Great, the British, and the Soviet Union, and this tragic killing of sixteen Afghans by one deranged soldier, on top of Koran burnings which led to violence and the death of a number of Americans in reaction to the destruction, should be seen as a sign that our nation needs to leave as soon as possible.

This is particularly the case when the Afghan leader Hamid Karzai demands that troops leave the villages, and stay on military bases. If that is so, our whole purpose of trying to pacify the countryside is no longer possible.

So let’s use this unfortunate circumstance to get out of this hell hole that Afghanistan has, sadly, become and spend our money on rebuilding our nation internally!

If anything is to be done in Afghanistan against terrorists, let it be by drones and the Air Force, not ground troops.

A decade after September 11, it is time for liberation from a decade of endless, worthless war!

The Ides Of March: Significant In The Past And The Present!

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Today, March 15, marks the anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Republic in 44 BC, so well depicted by William Shakespeare.

But in America, it is marked by the speech of President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, calling for the Voting Rights Act to stop discrimination in voting for African Americans in the South.

Ironically, 47 years later, we are seeing many states, primarily in the South and Midwest, trying to deny the right to vote for the elderly, college students, the poor, and minorities by onerous Voter ID requirements, in many cases for people who have voted for decades without trouble, but now are being told they cannot vote in this year’s Presidential election.

This is all designed by Republicans and conservatives in their effort to defeat President Barack Obama by any means they can find, because they do not have the issues to win the election without utilizing dishonesty. And yet they claim they are trying to prevent voter fraud, which is only a few cases in many millions, far less than even one thousandth of one percent in the past decade!

So the Obama Administration, through Attorney General Eric Holder, has brought lawsuits against South Carolina and Texas, as well as Arizona and Alabama on other issues of racial and ethnic discrimination related to voting and basic human rights. And many Midwestern and Southern states, other than those mentioned, are also setting out to abuse the Voting Rights Act, trying to take us back to the era of Jim Crow voter laws, that denied poor and minority voters their basic rights!

Also, today marks the beginning of what is seen as an end to our engagement in Afghanistan, as President Hamid Karzai is calling for Allied forces to retreat to bases, and remove themselves from Afghan villages. This is the reaction to the tragic massacre by one American soldier last week, the murder of 16 civilians, including nine children and three women and four men, as they slept in their village a mile away from an American military base; and the earlier burning of Korans by American soldiers, leading to the killing of several soldiers by Taliban terrorists.

America has been in Afghanistan more than a decade, and the war is leading to no improvement worth the continuation of the sacrifice of our troops, or those of our allies.

Afghanistan has been the doom of Alexander the Great in the ancient world; the British Empire in the 19th century; the Soviet Union in the late 20th century; and now the US and allied nations in the 21st century! It is time to expedite our exit, and just use drones and the air force against Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists. Making Afghanistan a democracy is, sadly, a lost cause!

So March 15 past and present has significant meanings we must not forget!

The Afghanistan War: A Cause That Cannot Be Won!

Ronald Leave a comment

The Afghanistan War has recently become the longest war in US history, surpassing the Vietnam War, and the news coming from the war front is not positive! 🙁

Just this week, on ABC’s THIS WEEK, which lists all those who have died, almost all of the names listed were of young men in their early to mid 20s, who had their lives snuffed out in an interminable war in which the Taliban seem to be getting stronger, and the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai seems more resistant to the influence of the NATO allies fighting there, amidst reports that Karzai and his brother, who has been involved in the cocaine trade, are looking toward an eventual deal with the enemy!

The Afghan government has never really been interested in the plight of the average Afghan civilian, and the corruption and scandal in that country is endemic, and makes one continue to wonder how we can continue to sustain a war that has already cost more than 1,000 lives, plus even more than that number severely wounded! 🙁

This war is costing more every month in lives and cost, and it seems as if the best opportunity to win, back in late 2001, botched by the Bush Administration, has now made the commitment of President Obama to win there seemingly a pipe dream!

And meanwhile, young Americans continue to die for a cause that is not just, by any means, when one examines the facts! 🙁

Time For Reconsideration Of Afghanistan Policy!

Ronald Leave a comment

United States involvement in Afghanistan has always been seen as a problem by many observers, since the Soviet Union suffered its downfall to a great extent due to their military engagement in that nation from 1979 to 1988.

It was also the graveyard of earlier attempts at military takeover, including the British Empire.

US and NATO involvement in Afghanistan has been based on the threat of the Taliban, who have associated with Al Qaeda, and since September 11 occurred due to Al Qaeda being in Afghanistan, it seemed essential that this nation invade and overcome those who did this dastardly deed!

But the Afghan War has not gone well for years, and the country is a disaster area as far as the levels of poverty and corruption that exist! Afghanistan has long been a “failed state”, and its leader, Hamid Karzai, has a horrible reputation as an evil, corrupt man, whose own brother is allegedly involved in the cocaine trade. What a despicable alliance that the Western powers are associated with, and to be connected with such a venal family and his followers! 🙁

And now, Karzai has attacked the West and suggested he might join the Taliban himself!

This makes one wonder why in good sense we continue to feel a need to fight and die in Afghanistan, when the Taliban are no threat to attack us, and Al Qaeda has gone elsewhere, including Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen as their havens.

With other nations rapidly leaving Afghanistan, President Obama needs to make a commitment to withdraw our forces over a measured period of time, and not allow any Republican or conservative opposition to stand in the way of a sane policy, of taking us out of the impossible Afghan morass, which has no winners and no hope for major improvement in the future!

President Obama, take what President Hamid Karzai has said as the justification for US withdrawal from a country not worth fighting for! We have spread ourselves thin and endangered our own economic and security future by allowing ourselves to be engaged in Afghanistan for the past nine years, and it is time to withdraw, and soon!