Rethinking Afghanistan
28 11 2009I have a nephew in Afghanistan. He left a couple weeks ago. He came over to the house and we chatted a little bit the day before he left. He’s a kid, not unlike many kids who aren’t quite sure what to do with their lives, who need direction, and who have decided to pursue military service. And so he joined the Marines.
He was three years old when I first met him – the most adorable kid possible, with big brown eyes, a little shy smile, and a shorter version of the Prince Valiant hair cut little 3-year olds have. He was watching his older cousins and brothers swinging on a big tire swing that was tied to the branch of a giant cottonwood tree. It was a hot July day (for Alaska) and as the tire swung out over the “swiiming hole” they’d leap off and land with great splashes and the whoops and laughter that boys have. It was a troop of seven cousins – all boys, and this little guy was the youngest and watched wistfully as the big kids had their fun.
As I gave him a hug good-bye, I didn’t know what to say. The little shy three year old was now big enough to crush me if he wanted to, and I had to stand on tiptoe to give him a proper hug. I ended up saying “Good luck,” but what I was thinking was that no matter what happened, I was saying goodbye to someone who would not be back. Even if no physical harm comes to him, he will be forever changed. What I really wanted to say was that I was sad because everything here would be pretty much the same when he got back, but he would be different, and there was nothing anyone could do to make it otherwise.
So, I’ve been thinking more about Afghanistan than usual lately. Like many of you, I am worried about the direction we are headed, and if the troop surge which is expected on Tuesday will help things overall, or bring us deeper into “The Graveyard of Empires” as the country is called. And so an email with the subject line “Rethinking Afghanistan” caught my eye. It was from Brave New Films, the brainchild of Robert Greenwald. He wanted to team up with selected blogs to promote his new film.
Here is the first segment of the film, which focuses on what military escalation is likely to achieve in Afghanistan. You can see all the segments for free online. It is an absolutely powerful presentation that will make you rethink many aspects of this war – the dangers of a destabilized Pakistan, the civilian casualties of the war, the staggering economic cost, questioning of the assumption that the war can improve life for Afghan women, and CIA operatives who say that there is no “victory” to be won. And if you make a $25 donation using the link below between now and the end of the year, you will receive two copies of the DVD for the regular price of one. The idea is to share them widely and change the conversation when it comes to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
GET THE DVD ‘RETHINKING AFGHANISTAN’ HERE
It was interesting to see Dennis Kucinich go after Rick Santorum today for taking the typical right vs. left argument regarding the war. Conversations are starting to happen. It’s up to us to continue them.
November 28th, 2009 at 8:27 PM
Go Congressman Kucinich – ! I would like to see more of that type of response to important questions.
November 28th, 2009 at 8:34 PM
This is real conversation. Kunich was great. It is suprising to see how GOP crave the war. He right the war is here.
November 28th, 2009 at 8:36 PM
Ok I am tired too many typos. It is 12.15AM. Time to go to bed. Mudflat is addictive.
I meant to say, He is right, the war is here
November 28th, 2009 at 8:51 PM
We don’t seem to have learned much from the Russian experience in Afghanistan, just as we didn’t learn much from France’s experience in Vietnam. I pray for wisdom for President Obama and his advisers as they contemplate the best way to get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq, and for the safe return of the soldiers serving our country there and elsewhere in the world.
November 28th, 2009 at 8:53 PM
Didn’t read your whole piece – just wanted to commiserate – my stepdaughter is an Army Medic headed to Afghanistan in December. I’m not very comfortable about it… all of a sudden a war action I’m not happy about is too close to home.
November 28th, 2009 at 9:21 PM
Thanks for the clips. War is not the answer to what ails us. Republicans (not all) seem to hunger for war (lots of money to be made, think Blackwater/Xe).
We the people are adversely affected by the propaganda of those who market war despite the ‘collateral damage’ that is never justified to the ones most likely to be affected.
I am encouraged that we are being forced to reconsider our effectiveness in Afghanistan. American ‘exceptionalism’ and its manifest destiny claims do not trump war without end forever.
November 28th, 2009 at 9:47 PM
I weep for your lost nephew. Enshallah, he will return, but as you said he will be a very different person. But that’s what life does to us, some more traumatically than others. I remember my nephew when he was 3. The most wonderful, hopeful kid you would want to meet. He’s not going to Afghanistan, but this country and this economy, and — worse — a completely effed family, condemn him to what I fear is a life of despair.
At least your nephew is, to some degree, choosing his destiny. My nephew had that taken from him before he was born.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:09 PM
I just watched all six episodes and now I doubt that I will have any restful sleep tonight. I fail to understand why we are in either Iraq or Afghanistan – I have not heard a truly legitimate reason over the last eight years. The war on terror is local, whether one is in the London, Lisbon, or New York. The perpetrators may not be local, but the war is local.
I was involved in the Vietnam war and I’m thinking it is time to take to the streets to bring our troops home from these two wars now. Come home under our terms rather than being routed as happened in 1975 (year may be wrong – too tired to look it up). I don’t want to sit and watch a TV for hours/days to watch our troops being forced out of another country we should not be in militarily.
It is late – I must rest and think.
November 28th, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Kucinich does a great job of kicking Santorum’s backside by sticking to the issue, and reminding us it isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a matter of figuring out what’s best for the country.
Meanwhile, Santorum does his best to avoid the subject at hand by attempting to distract us with partisanship and unrelated topics. He’s so busy doing that he completely misses an opportunity to pounce when Kucinich is critical of the Obama administration.
How hard is it to see that when our country wins, we all win, and when one party wins to the detriment of our country, we all lose?
November 28th, 2009 at 11:30 PM
My son will be 18 in a few short months.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:37 PM
Thanksgiving conversations:
I was talking today with a Canadian military member about the Ft Hood shootings and the “moral” judgements resulting. If this person is right, the dead will not receive posthumous decorations, nor will their families receive benefits as if they had died in combat (whatever those benefits may be). It left me wondering how the 9/11 deaths at the pentagon were treated. Act of war or not? Apparently the companion arguement is, if the shooting was an act of war, then the shooter was sane and the act gets blamed on his religion/race which no one wants to do. I can see why they may *need* to believe he was crazy.
Speaking of benefits, a quote from a American: “we have this little tidbit out over the holiday; it appears that Mr. Obama ordered the Office of Personnel Management not to comply with a Federal court order because that order would have required medical benefits for the wife of a lesbian employed by the Federal courts.” Apparently that judgement was the result of a specific court case.
Guess the turkey that got pardoned wasn ‘t in a same-sex marrige.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Santorum is one of those chickenhawk nutjobs that has no credibility on any topic. That’s why he is no longer a senator and is given a platform only on Faux Nooz.
November 29th, 2009 at 2:38 AM
My speakers don’t work, so I can’t watch the clip. I think Afghanistan is a no win no matter what we do, and that it sounds, from his taking the time he has, that President Obama wants to do the least harm.
I’ve heard commentators I respect – on the left – say that just leaving would be morally unacceptable, a bloodbath. I think those who don’t see how we can make progress are probably right. I think also of CNN correspondent Michael Ware who would agree about the bloodbath, but thinks those who think we’re going to “win” this war are delusional. Also Richard Engel. Those two are as important to listen to as anybody.
It seems to me that most of those who simply think we should get out, and those who think we should go gung-ho ahead and give McChrystal everything he wants are all being too simplistic about this – and that those who are not in either of those camps really don’t know what to do. Neither the guy who quit nor the Ambassador who objected to McChrystal’s plan think we should get out, but we haven’t heard a lot of what they want us to do instead. Not a very good situation for us, the Afghans, or the Pakistanis.
So what it feels like I can do is pray for peace, support those who are being thoughtful in trying to find a way through the weeds, and listen to all sides in this. I pray for your nephew, Bretta’s stepdaughter, all those who are in harm’s way, including the Afghans. Our little state is sending another 1500 national guard next month.
November 29th, 2009 at 2:45 AM
@Kate in Canada
Can’t find anything in a quick look about posthumous promotions, but this Rand study does talk about what the victims or their families received as compensation. Injured or deceased first responders received on average 1 million dollars more than other “civilians.” It would seem the pentagon personnel were neither first responders nor civilians, so I don’t know for sure how they were compensated.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/defenseandsecurity/a/randon911.htm
November 29th, 2009 at 3:27 AM
I only watched the first clip. It’s the middle of the night and I should be asleep. So I’ll catch the rest tomorrow.
However, some of the things being discussed reminded me of something I heard on NPR or read somewhere about why we can’t approach Afghanistan the same way as any other place. It has to do with the history of the country – they don’t function like any other country. There is no centralized government, democratic or otherwise. They are a region where everything is tribal. And no one, over all these years has managed to make them into something that resembles any European government or the US. Nor do they want it. All that happens is that they unite against anyone from the outside.
The other thing that this guy I heard talked about was the way the Soviet Union took over many of the countries and forced them to adapt to the soviet culture and government. Afghanistan is the only place where nothing like that has happened.
And that means that any sort of traditional approach is not going to be beneficial to anyone – not to Afghanistan or any other country near them, and not to the United States.
I was sorry to hear that President Obama was going to send more troops, in any number. I feel like we are starting to head down that murky path that led us to years of time in Viet Nam, with a horrible loss of lives. I don’t want to go there again, but I’m afraid that we are.
That being said, I’m not really sure what the answer is or if there is any reasonable answer. On the one hand, we can’t just sit by and let terrorists have a safe place to be, but we also can’t keep invading other countries trying to make them like we are. History has shown us that is not to our advantage.
There just isn’t a good solution, IMO. But I really don’t think sending more troops will have any sort of positive outcome.
My prayers are with our troops that are there and those who will be going.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:26 AM
I watched both clips — very interesting and thought-provoking.
I think it is jaded, dismissive and dangerous to assume that Republicans want this war because they are warhawks, or only because war is profitable to defense companies and their investors, or because Reps just plain love and hunger for war. It is also the most bigoted kind of partisanship. The majority of Republicans are NOT dumbass Religious Right whackjobs who think that America can do no wrong, just as the majority of Democrats are NOT dumbass tax-and-spend bleeding heart liberal socialists who think that everything that America does is wrong and whose economic role model is Robin Hood. And just as the majority of Afghanis are NOT dumbass Religious Right al Qaida-loving suicide-bombing whackjobs.
The U.S. is in one hell of a tough position in Afghanistan. The al Qaida-supporting Taliban is a huge risk to our national security, IMO. There is seemingly no diplomatic solution to the problem. If there is also no military solution, what are we supposed to do? Scary prospect. Israel has been struggling for decades with this type of problem. If the goal of your enemy is your total destruction, there is no diplomatic solution short of suicide, which — let’s face it — isn’t terribly diplomatic.
Speaking of suicide, let’s all pray that sending more troops into the Graveyard of Empires…isn’t. AKM, I sincerely hope that your nephew returns safely. While I am certain that you are correct that he will not come back the same, I do hope that he will come back unscarred both physically and emotionally. And, on a more positive note, serving in the military may give him a greater sense of purpose, respect, discipline and personal responsibility, and hopefully be a source of great pride. All the good and none of the bad. Here’s hoping.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:27 AM
My 23 year old son was a mess as a 16 and 17 year old. He was living lies and holding onto the scars of divorce. After raising him alone for 4 1/2 years he ran away from home over a homework assignment he had cheated on. He ran home to his mother. Once he left he became addicted to booze and pills, attempted suicide and refused to see me from the day he left our home (he had just turned 16) until my mother died in April of 2009.
He did make brief contact with me towards the end of his senior year of High School. He said he was contemplating going into the Army. I told him whatever he did I would support him. He did, I have, and we talk very regularly now. He has risen to the rank of Sergeant and has pulled one tour of 15 months in Iraq. He also has known and been assigned to a tour in Afghanistan for more than 6 months. He will be deployed there early next year. He is the only human being I listen to about the wars over there and have only ears for. My opinions do not surface in those talks. I promised to support him.
First it was that miserable Bush who was my son’s boss. It is beginning to look like Obama is just like Bush. My son is a better man for being in the service than he would have been as a civilian. I am sure of this. I am also sure that as my wife and I await the birth of a new baby next Feb/March that Obama had best not waste my son’s life. I am watching him. Like a hawk.
Yeah, fightin em over there so we don’t fight em over here so we they can have cratered cities and we can go bankrupt morally, physically, and financially.
And at 11:00 PM every night our multinational corps flip their switches to export their billions to China while we pay 60k a year to lock up another pothead.
November 29th, 2009 at 6:53 AM
I have to tell you that I understand how you feel about your nephew leaving for war. My youngest son joined the Marine Reserves in 2003. He has been to Iraq twice. The first time was in 2005 and the casualties were high. Was he changed when he came home? Yes, but children grow up whether they go to war or not. My son did not become a hardened or humorless person, even though he saw plenty of death and destruction.
My oldest son went away to college and got involved with the party scene and drugs. The anguish that I was not able to protect him from that harm was similar to the anguish when my other son was halfway around the world, driving a vehicle on roads strewn with IEDs.
I found when I can’t do the mother hen thing, I have to go to a higher level. For me, that meant prayer. I had to trust that God was where I couldn’t be.
Your nephew needs his family to be strong. They worry about YOU worrying! Write often…once he’s there, you can do motomail (internet messages that are printed and delivered daily). Your nephew is lucky that you are such a good writer! They like to hear what is going on at home, even if it is just walking the dog and who you saw at the store.
Even though I think these wars were started for the wrong reasons, I am in awe of these young people for their courage and sacrifice.
Be strong!
November 29th, 2009 at 7:24 AM
I had a cousin who went to Vietnam. He was such a sweet child and young man. He came back a truly destroyed person, physically and emotionally, and he died a very young death, very much an uncounted casualty of the war. Most are changed as much as he was, but no one can experience what awaits them and return the same.
I wish for the best for your nephew. He may not come back destroyed, but he will come back changed.
November 29th, 2009 at 7:24 AM
First and foremost, my thoughts and best wishes will be with your nephew, just as they are with everyone else over there. Secondly, Semper Fi.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I hope that as a nation we can survive long enough to see some good sense come back on foreign policy, because right now it seems to be lacking from both parties…with a few exceptions like Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul… This lust for war will be America’s downfall.
November 29th, 2009 at 7:46 AM
I wish the best for your nephew. My cousin’s son was just deployed to Iraq, his father was in Gulf1, and his father (and another uncle) were in Vietnam. I have spent many years writing letters and sending packages to family in the military. Please communicate as much as possible, send pictures, packages and even newspapers. Every bit of “normal” they can get in such an abnormal situation helps. My uncles in Vietnam were very grateful, they said it really helped. Today with email etc it is even easier.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:25 AM
I, too, have been thinking differently about the war lately. My brother just returned from Afghanistan. He was the commanding officer for French troops stationed at Kandahar Air Force base. When he called me in late May to tell me he was not going to be able to come and visit us in the US that summer as planned, because he was being deployed to Afghanistan, I had to tell him my bad news: I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Strangely enough, his July to November stay there coincided with my chemotherapy, nearly exactly half way around the globe in Southern Arizona. We would talk to each other on Skype, finding humor in our hardships and comparing climate data. There were days when he missed his kids while I was quite ready for mine to start school again! Of course, unlike me, he did not have a swimming pool to go cool off in when it got above 110. And one time, we both had a dust storm on the same day. My mother was in France, half way between us, her older children both in harm’s way in far away deserts. She will be here next week, to take care of me after my surgery, just two years after my father died of cancer.
Hopefully, President Obama will announce a plan with clearly stated goals for ending this useless war, including a precise timetable for bringing home the troops, along with whatever increase in troop levels they have settled on. Unlike some, I still am totally confident our president’s decision will be the right one. And I do hope there will come a time soon when we as a society recognize that although wars can be ended, they can never be won.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:54 AM
Warning: Completely OT, even if this is an open thread! But it does point out a good point that could very easily be applied to SP. As a Gator fan, I just had to cruise the web for comments about yesterday’s game, and the up-coming SEC play-off with Alabama. Below is part of an article about Tim Tebow. Interesting that he is an Evangelical Christian, but sure doesn’t act like SP etc.
” How many times – on Twitter, blogs, message boards, and other corners of cyberspace – have college football fans expressed annoyance or outright dislike toward Tim Tebow, based on the media’s collective coverage of No. 15? Let’s keep it simple, everybody: It never makes sense to dislike anyone because of forces that lie beyond that person’s control. If a public figure is spending money or otherwise initiating a massive campaign to manipulate his image and create the appearance of an alternate reality, that person (think Alex Rodriguez before this season) deserves public scorn and ridicule. Plainly put, Tebow is not and has not been such a person. If anything, the Florida Gator legend has done his level best to keep his life as ordinary as possible for a Heisman winner, Christian missionary, and genuine activist. He’s had to dive out of camera frames when strangers have tried to take pictures of him with young women who would abruptly remove their own clothing. “
November 29th, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Last evening, I watched “Taking Chance”. It is a powerful story about one single death of a soldier in Iraq and the experience of the Marine who escorted his body home. Clearly, the troops are valiant in their efforts. It is the politicians who have let us down. It will be decades before we recover from the mistakes, failings and incompetence of the Bush administration. I do not envy President Obama for the decision he has had to make and I truly pray that we find a way out of both Afghanistan and Iraq as quickly as possible. My chief concern in all of this is the security of Pakistan and Obama quite rightly expanded the “theater” to include it this spring. However, we need to define success (not “victory”), measure progress and leave at the earliest opportunity. Bush wasted seven years in Afghanistan without a plan. We cannot afford to continue on that same course.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:21 AM
(((IsyFleur))) Good luck with your surgery.
I so wish I could watch these but I am dial-up trash and it would take hours. Might have to order the DVDs but then I would have to give up money I am saving for NunamIqua. Oh, the decisions…
I echo IsyFleur’s sentiments that wars can never be won. My heart aches for every man and woman (American, Afghani, Iraqi, French, German, whatever) who has to be involved in any of them (whether in combat or as a family member or a civilian).
I hold hope in my heart that President Obama is going to do the best possible thing and await his “exit strategy”. I sure as heck wouldn’t know what to do at this point. I keep going back to the book “Three Cups of Tea” because it gives me hope. I just finished the second book by the author of “The Kite Runner”. I think it was called “The Land of Ten Thousand Suns” (don’t have time to run downstairs and find it). It darn near broke my heart. I really feel for the women there.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:35 AM
If we need to remain in Afghanistan to prevent Al Qaeda returning from over the border, shouldn’t we then invade Pakistan?
November 29th, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Pat, Washington state @15 -
Thank you for that summary of the situation in Afghanistan – it’s information that we all need to keep reminding ourselves about.
What frustrates me so much about this war is that there is still so much focus on ‘winning’ by those on the right. We CAN’T ‘win’ this war! So many of them are still in the mindset of World War I and II and even Korea, where there was a definitive enemy and a measurable victory, and the fighting was essentially over who controlled a particular territory. The enemy we are fighting in this war is not as easily identifiable and continually changes. They don’t follow the traditional strategies of war, nor do they abide by traditional rules of engagement. They are not fighting to control territory – they are fighting for a religious ideal.
We are NOT going to turn Afghanistan into a western democracy and we shouldn’t try. The best we can hope for is a stabilization of their version of government(s) and the reduction of the threat of terrorism finding its way to our shores. It is a no-win situation for our President and I give him tremendous credit for having the courage to take this on.
In the meantime, I pray for the safety of our troops and that our President makes the best decision he can under these very difficult circumstances.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:44 AM
When reading the comments regarding the NYT article on the Senate report that we had OBL and let him escape, it was amazing to read that it was Clinton’s fault for doing nothing, now it is President Obama’s fault that he is still at large. They skipped right over GWB, how convenient.
November 29th, 2009 at 9:51 AM
I know a number of vets and will tell you about 2 from Vietnam who have changed my life. One was with the Green Berets although not one of them. He got out, went to school on the GI bill and got a Ph D in microbiology, went to work for a biotech firm and then went off and started 2 other biotech firms. I met him and his family when I was in college and lived with them for 6 weeks when I first moved to the East Coast. He helped me get my apartment because of the investment banker we had dinner with one night when I first started working in NYC. I lived in that same place, across from where the investment banker had lived for 9 years.
The second Vietnam vet a helicopter pilot doing medical evacuations. He became a chiropractor and was the boyfriend of one of my friends when I first moved back to No Cal. He still has horrible dreams this many years later.
About 5 years ago, I was on a walking tour of my neighborhood as a fund raiser for a Catholic school across from my then home. Between the 5th and last home, I was on the cell phone with the first vet and took a step that threw out my back to the point I was going to have to crawl home. I got off the phone and called to see if the chiro vet would be able to see me. She said he’d do so at her house. He treated me on her living room floor. With the first adjustment on my neck, an injury I’d gotten as a passenger hit by an oncoming truck in the other direction, 6 weeks of congestion was gone. People had said I was allergic to the local trees. I was not. Since that initial treatment 5 years ago, I’ve probably been adjusted 10 times. This after hundreds of treatments over 20 years before.
He’s gone back into the military to do training.
Another kid was a trust-fund baby who enlisted after 9/11 and deployed to Iraq. He has a metal plate in his head from the brain injury he got there. After meeting him, when a woman I know wanted to create a home for brain injured adults, she asked me to help her, I said yes. Because I’d worked in many start ups, including that biotech firm.
What goes around comes around, and you and I can help these people go on and do great things. They may come back changed, but even after their deployment, they still can make huge contributions. So can we, with their inspiration.
Bottom line, please stay positive and stand ready to help.
November 29th, 2009 at 10:47 AM
If you want to understand what is going on, read “Descent Into Chaos”, a brilliant best-seller which will help you to understand just what exactly is going on in Afghanistan and Pakistan, what went wrong, and the absolute incompetence of the previous administration – this written by the Pakistani journalist who wrote the New York Times bestseller “Taliban”. The more you learn about what the government does in your name, the more you should become very, very, very well-informed before hastily rallying to their manipulative cries for ‘patriotic duty’.
November 29th, 2009 at 11:20 AM
Dennis Kucinich was great. We need more like him. Santorum seems like a pretty boy weasel. He said that defense only accounted for about 12 percent of the federal budget. Wasn’t there a pie chart on this site a few weeks ago that showed something different? I can’t remember exactly. Does anybody else recall seeing this?
The whole Afghanistan thing scares the daylights out of me. I also have nephews in the military.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Thanks to AlaskaDisasta, I look forward to reading Descent Into Chaos. I have just finished A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya, which I very much recommend — this woman has more courage in her little pinky than most people could ever muster. And also, I recently read The Places In Between by Rory Stewart — and while I certainly do not agree that it is a “masterpiece” (as it has been described), still it is an interesting tale of a journey through some of the most remote villages in Afghanistan. Both authors come to the same conclusion — increasing the American military presence will make things worse, not better. Afghanistan has a long, long history of repelling invasions, which is exactly how they see what we are doing.
May your nephew and his fellow soldiers — and the Afghani people — be safe.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:59 PM
So sorry about post #20 – Thought I was posting under the Open Thread. My bad and dumbness!
November 29th, 2009 at 1:44 PM
Bottom line is all empires in history have failed. They fail because wars, especially foreign ones never pay for themselves.
If they did Spain would still be the richest and most powerful nation in the world. They stole literally ship loads of gold, silver, copper, precious and semiprecious stones, along with furs, meat, lumber, slaves ….. just from South America. But the over head of shipping, military occupation etc ate up all the profit and them some.
Every single empire has failed, the cost of perpetual war is unsustainable. God hasn’t made a seperate set of rules for the US, not matter what the bible thumpers say.
November 29th, 2009 at 1:49 PM
After watching the remastered “All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film)” On its release, Variety magazine wrote:The League of Nations could make no better investment than to buy up the master-print, reproduce it in every language, to be shown in all the nations until the word “war” is taken out of the dictionaries.
Go to Bill Moyers and find LBJohnsons taped conversation about the war in Vietnam. Tapes from 1964.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/profile.html
I want them all to come home. More informed people than I have applied their mind to Afghanistan and they say it cannot be stopped with more war.
November 29th, 2009 at 3:18 PM
Hope no one interpreted from what I wrote that I support war. I was just trying to say the people who have gone in our name can come back to do great things as many have. You don’t always get to hear about them, though.
November 29th, 2009 at 3:36 PM
I watched the first segment of the rethinking Afghanistan video and the one figure that i can not get out of my head was that the USSR had five hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan; 500,000. How many does the US have, 60-80,000. I am afraid history has already proved my fear for our soldiers as well as the so called collateral damage the people are sustaining; and all this as we sit at our computers typing away.
I wish I really had more to offer, some solution that protects all Americans, all our American soldiers, all Afghanis, and of course all Afghani Women…
M. Paul
November 29th, 2009 at 3:43 PM
AKM
I posted this over at my TPM Cafe blog, hope you do not mind.
November 29th, 2009 at 4:32 PM
http://www.vibincblog.com/?p=1528 Please listen to words of Wisdom from President Clinton as he spoke at a Jefferson/Jackson Dinner in Nashville in August. Especially Progressives, who aren’t happy with many of Obama’s decisions, and he warned us that we wouldn’t be. Thanks.
November 30th, 2009 at 11:17 AM
Obama better have one heck of a plan.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:42 PM
Please support our troops and veterans. Oppose the medical device safety act, which would remove FDA protection from device inventors and force companies to go under.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:45 AM
Barbara Thank you so much i don’t know how I missed Bill Clinton’s speech.I was waiting for him to say something on health care.He was just great.
I think we need to get out of both Iraq and Afghanistan but we need a secure way to get out and IMO boy do we have to worry about Pakistan.My thought is if we left Afghanistan would it give al qaeda room to take over Pakistan more than it has ,would they be more rash than they now are if we were not there? I don’t think we can make another country become what we are or believe as we do and we should not force our beliefs on them.Seems we have enough of that going on in our own country right now.If you were not saved,so to speak you are not christian according to some religions LOL Not mine My God is a loving God and a forgiving God.