Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Afghanistan has become the forgotten war.

Forgotten by the media. Forgotten by the President. And forgotten by the American people. Unless of course one of our own goes on a violent rampage and kills civilians. The fact of the matter is, the American people have grown weary of the eleven year war that has costed so many American lives and so much money. Ten years later it seems we have made no progress.

Just hours ago, 4 more US troops have been killed there, blown to bits by a suicide bomber for Allah. We may hear about this on a short blip on the nightly news but that will come and go, and Americans will continue on with their lives as baseball season starts, American Idol ends, and the election heats up.

What is truly appalling is the utter indifference Barack Obama has exhibited since day one of his presidency towards our efforts in Afghanistan. In just a little over three years, from the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency to today, 1,288 US troops have lost their lives in Afghanistan. That is more than DOUBLE the amount of casualties suffered from the entire war leading up to that point, from the fall of 2001 through 2008.

Alas, that is the forgotten story. There are more important things to worry about. Like government run healthcare. And birth control. Racism. NCAA Basketball.

On a personal note, I have many close friends stationed in Afghanistan now. They go about their jobs every day because it is their duty. But they know that their Commander in Chief couldn't care less about them.

It is time to discontinue the ground war in Afghanistan. Leave a special ops contingent behind. Continue the drone strikes. But the "hearts and minds" effort is futile. It's a failed notion. It's too bad we don't have a leader who understands this.

1 comment:

One Guy 2012 said...

Are we in Afghanistan to kill terrorists or to establish democracy in a Nation that still wipes their asses with their bare hands?

Until the CIC can give me a reasonable answer, I opt for getting the hell out of that dung heap of a third world nation and bringing our boys home.

Until the population of Afghans publicly declare, "We want to be just like America and we also want to remove Islamic freakshow terrorists from our midst!", we shouldn't be there.

We have domestic terrorism to contend with and homeland security that takes precedence.