Afghanistan: Graveyard of Foreign Armies

I don't like to weigh in about war because I do not like war and the rationale for war. I thought the entry into Iraq was a bad idea and the obvious contrivances foisted upon us in the run up to the war had me shouting at the television. Then George Bush threw down the gauntlet, we were either with him or against him and Rummy (Donald Rumsfeld) enthralled us with his surefire shock and awe strategy and the next minute we were watching the biggest fireworks show ever, the bombing of Baghdad.

The whole thing was supposed to be easy, the mighty pyrotechnical weaponry of the greatest and most expensive army in the world would take out Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction and deliver unto the Iraqis a freely democratic state that would also serve as an American foothold in the region. Six and half years later, we are still there. Are we?

There has not been much press on the Iraq War lately because the Iraq War, all that it is, ended up being a very expensive trillion dollar distraction, siphoning off troops and resources from the war in Afghanistan, where we were fighting the good fight against Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, the architect of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, and their state sanctioned sponsor the Taliban. Now, Afghanistan is front and center again, for eight years later, we are still there as well.

Both the Iraq and Afghan wars are of the same ilk. We invaded sovereign nations, destabilized their dictatorial regimes, tried to impose a system of democracy that resulted in weak, ineffectual and corrupt governments and where we have whipped up brutal insurgencies. Now, if we pull out, both of these fledgling states, Iraq and Afghanistan, can easily be overrun by power-hungry anti-American factions that will reverse all of our efforts, undermine our foothold in the region and imperil the lives of the inhabitants, not to mention becoming full out breeding grounds for terrorist cells.

The only existing military logic is to hold the line against insurgency by sending in more troops and training the national armies to manage the fight themselves allowing us to withdraw. We have been training the Afghans and the Iraqis for eight years and six years respectively and their armies are still not ready to take the reins. We send our soldiers into battle after six weeks of basic training but it seems virtually impossible to bring those national armies up to speed.

We are supposed to draw down troops in Iraq next year and right now, I don't know if that is still the plan. Whatever the case General McChrystal has now asked his Commander-in-Chief for 44,000 more troops in Afghanistan. Sending more troops will be a tacit acceptance of prolonged war. We must note here that Afghanistan has been known as the "graveyard of foreign armies" for several hundred years. Historically, foreign armies, including the British and the Russians, have jeopardized their empires trying to defeat the Afghans in lengthy contests, without success.

We cannot continue to fund both of these wars as we have already gone into considerable debt funding them and if we continue, in light of the current deficits and amid our current economic collapse, we run the risk of utter financial ruin. The President has a hard choice but in the end, I think, he should not send more troops. He should let the military manage with what they have while finding a solution for America to withdraw as expeditiously as possible before we all go down in flames.

September 11

September 11 needs no distraction from me. I watched MSNBC this morning as it ran its newsreel of the event synced in real time. A friend of mine said “isn’t it a little macabre for them to be doing that?” and I said, “don’t you remember? 9-11-2001 never forget?” I think it was entirely appropriate to relive 9-11 because it helped us keep the promise; my husband and I ruminated on how that fateful morning unfolded for us 7 years ago. He was fortunate to work from home today relieving him of his usual 4 hr commute into Manhattan, a commute that he had made that day 7 years ago that turned into a 12 hr journey home. Today’s broadcast brought back the emotion of every minute.

For us, the most deeply rooted sentiment was that this day was business as usual, people going to work like we did everyday, ordinary people who work in office buildings, checking their email and reviewing their tasks for the day, abiding by the strict work ethic...that could have been us. At the time we both worked for a company that had clients in the building, on any given day he could have been there, but that day the only people who survived were the people who didn’t get to work on time, just that one day.