We Must Leave Afghanistan And The Middle East Immediately

By Frosty Wooldridge

After ten bloody years in Vietnam, we finally pulled out in 1975.  We left the country bombed out, Agent Orange-contaminated and a trail of 2.1 million corpses of men, women and children.  We suffered 58,300 young men’s deaths and another 350,000 horribly injured.  Because of P.T.S.D., another 200,000 combat troops who left Vietnam in one piece—later committed suicide.  Millions more remain divorced, homeless, drunk and mentally distressed on our streets across America. We did nothing to make the world a better place. 

Later, Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam, in his book Fog of War  said, “I made a mistake.”

Ten years ago, George W. Bush, arrogantly and without valid purpose— idiotically attacked Iraq with the same immorality and ignorance as Lyndon Baines Johnson attacked Vietnam.  Gulf of Tonkin and Weapons of Mass Destruction—both a bunch of balderdash.  Bush should stand trial for war crimes against humanity.  He created tens of thousands of “Newtown, CT” events in Iraq.

Barack Obama promises to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014—two years after he killed Osama bin Laden.   Result:  more bombings and drone attacks that create hundreds of “Newtown, CT” slaughtering events of Afghanistan families and other innocents.    It would mean hundreds of added deaths to our finest young men and women in military uniform.  Social scientists expect at least 150,000 to 200,000 more suicides from former combat troops that served in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In the U.S. Army and Marine Corps today, an average of four men commit suicide 24/7.  War scrambles a person’s mind.

For all the wasted lives, the stupidity and the futility of the Afghanistan War, isn’t it about time we pick up and leave that God-forsaken Islamic crazy place?  We haven’t accomplished anything in 10 years—why spend another two years wasting money, lives and resources?

This president and our U.S. Congress show themselves as incompetent, arrogant, stupid and out of touch with reality.

This metaphor fits Afghanistan and Iraq perfectly:  if you stick your hand in a bucket of water, your hand will displace the water and raise the level of the water in the bucket while you remain. As soon as you take your hand out of the water, the water and conditions will return to their original levels.  In other words, you did nothing whatsoever to change anything in the bucket of water.

As soon as we left Iraq, they returned to squabbling, fighting, bombing and killing each other.  The Muslims have slaughtered the Christians and run them out.  The Kurds separated themselves into a distinct region.  The Sunnis and the Shiites cut each other’s throats daily.  They haven’t passed a constitution. 

As soon as we leave Afghanistan, and we will leave one day, they will return to war lords, their usual illiteracy, horrible treatment of their women and the customary Islamic barbaric Sharia law of that culture. 

We brought only death and destruction to both countries and we accomplished nothing of enduring good.

We suffered 4,400 deaths in Iraq, over 2,000 deaths in Afghanistan and climbing and we have wasted $1 trillion for starters while we have destroyed the lives of thousands of our young people in uniform.  All in all, aren’t you sickened by war and the futility of it in the Middle East?  We don’t win; we don’t lose; we just keep killing and being killed.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, “Even worse, many military officers later join the boards and executive suites of military contractors, where they rake in millions making corporations like Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon richer at taxpayer expense, and sometimes promoting war itself on the network news…our military-industrial complex is as corrupt and rotten as any institution of America’s broken democracy, and more deadly than most in its consequences.”

Not one single, logical or positive reason remains to continue in Afghanistan or anywhere around the world.  We bleed by a thousand cuts to our own citizens.  We suffer hemorrhaging of our lives, our resources, our morality, our spirituality and our face to the world.

Why wait until the end of 2014 to pull our hand out of the “bucket” of the Middle East?  Let’s leave that tortured land today.  Give them back their countries, their choices, their way of life and their freedoms to choose their own fates.

“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct.  Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time.  If you are correct and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the ruth is still the truth.” Gandhi

##

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as eight times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece. In 2012, he bicycled coast to coast across America He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He speaks all over the United States:  How to Live a Life of Adventure:  The Art of Exploring the World. Copies at 1 888 280 7715.  Programs click: http://www.HowToLiveALifeOfAdventure.com