End the wars
March 20th, 2010 | by Simon |As a former US Navy sailor who served during the first war against Iraq, I just wanted to throw in my two cents worth on the anniversary of The Dumbest War Ever Fought by the US. The argumentation for US forces remaining in Iraq is really non-existent – the Iraqis don’t want us there, we (as in the American people, not Haliburton or The-Company-Formerly-Known-As-Blackwater) have nothing to gain there, and – as if it needed repeating – there were never any weapons of mass destruction there. Saddam’s dead. Leave the Iraqis to make Iraq whatever the hell they want it to be, even if it’s no longer a single country. It’s their country, their business.
The rationale for going to Afghanistan was the search for al-Qaida leaders who have been threatening to repeat 9/11 and so on. I’m not sure how invading a whole country was necessary to find a few guys hiding in the mountains. Sounds more like the job for a team of well-trained special ops people. But of course then Dick Chaney and his ilk wouldn’t be making billions on defense contracts, and the military-industrial complex would have to find something other to do. The Soviets, who had no moral compunctions about humane methods could not control all of Afghanistan for many years. There is little chance of the US doing that any time soon, especially that Soviet-style methods were much more effective in the short term. So I say send in the Seals, Green Berets or whatever other secret goons there are in the deepest recesses of the US military, take care of the dozen or so al-Qaida guys this whole thing’s been about all this time, and bring everyone back home. And leave the Afghans to do whatever they want to do with their country – if they want to live under Sharia law, let them. As long as they’re not trying to stone people on Oak Street Beach, what business is it of ours how they live?
Unfortunately, the hopes so many of us had of Obama ending the Republican insanity have gone unanswered. It looks as though Cheney’s boys have won, and the president is now simply a better-spoken, better-looking and slightly taller George W. Bush.
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3 Responses to “End the wars”
By Margo on Mar 29, 2010 | Reply
all with you on that one (or those three)
By Leo on Feb 4, 2011 | Reply
Easy to say – leave it to Iraqis, it is their business. US put Iraq in a big, big shit. It should pay by nose to clean it up.
By Simon on Feb 4, 2011 | Reply
Paying (i.e. helping in other ways as well) is one thing – keeping troops on the ground is another. As it is, the supposed withdrawal has consisted of verbal declarations that the troops’ combat role has ended. In fact, little seems to have changed.