Iraq and Syria and (still) Afghanistan

It looks like the current group of bad guys (isis) is gaining ground in Syria.  And the Turks are saying that the U.S. air strikes are not enough and ground forces are needed.  OK, whose ground forces?  Perhaps, for once, we let them fight it out.  It is my opinion that if the Turks/Syrians/Iraqis want to get rid of isis, there are more than enough of them to do it themselves.  But what if the bad guys win? We isolate them and let them determine their own fate.  

And we are to be allowed to keep 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. What joy! We get to keep pouring money into that rat hole.  Good thing we don't need the money for our own infrastructure, educational and medical systems, funding for the NIH, or anything else. 

Honestly folks, we have lost our minds. 

Hard Hearted?

I am terribly sorry for the families of the journalists who were beheaded and for the aid worker who was beheaded. I am terribly sorry for the young man who will spend the next part of his life as a prisoner of the North Koreans. I really am. But, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING WHEN THEY WENT THERE?? One of the journalists had previously been taken prisoner and was fortunate enough to be released and yet he chose to go to Syria. Didn't anyone tell them that when you go to places where really nasty people are either running amok or running the entire country, really bad things really do happen and can happen to you??

(And while beheading is repugnant to us, our good buddies in Saudi Arabia do it frequently. According to a Washington Post article, the Saudis beheaded 8 people last month. Rather ironic that Saudi Arabia is our ally in fighting ISIL.)

But before thinking the journalists, aide worker, and North Korea wannabe stupid, perhaps it would be well to consider the United States muddling deeper into Syria/Iraq/ISIL. We've been arming, training, and providing intelligence to the Afghans, the Libyans, the Iraqis, the Somalis, the Yemenis, and God/Allah knows who else and we see how well that has turned out. (Good thing there are no problems here within our own country that need tending to.) So perhaps the question should be WHAT ARE WE THINKING??  Obviously we haven't learned anything.

A Brief Rant

A Brief Rant

1. A segment on NPR this morning discussed the diminishing funds available for research.  Whether you are talking about the NIH or the National Cancer Institute, money is drying up for research. 

2. We are getting ready to spend half a billion dollars on the Syria/Iraq black hole. 

We have money to throw away on trying to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East but can't fund our own scientists, educate our own children, or repair our own infrastructure.  Makes a lot of sense. Not. 

Iraq....again....

Can there be anyone who is surprised at the growing chaos in Iraq?  I won't even try to sort out the various Sunni versus Shia hostilities.  When the U.S. pulled out both Joe and I wondered how long it would be before there would be a sectarian civil war.  The surprise has been that it didn't start earlier. I understand that the President has ordered 300 additional troops to secure American interests, i.e., the American Embassy. Good luck to them. I wonder if we will have another rooftop evacuation from the Embassy. As far as I can think, the only possible solution would be to break Iraq into 3 independent areas: the Kurds in the north, the Sunni in the center, and the Shia in the South and East.  We shall see.  

The same thing will happen as soon as we pull out of Afghanistan. 

What a tremendous loss of time, money, and lives.  It is my opinion, we should stop with the military intervention here, there, and everywhere.  I have no objections to humanitarian aid such as medical clinics or educational programs. But we are not the military police for the globe, besides we have enough needs not being taken care of right here in the United States. 

Iraq and Afghanistan

I wonder if there is anyone who thinks that we (the U.S. and various allies) have accomplished anything worthwhile in Iraq and/or Afghanistan? We are still bringing young Americans home in flag draped coffins and we are still spending billions of dollars on these debacles. Why? It is long past time to declare victory and get the hell out. Who will be the last person to lose their legs or their mental well being or their life? Who will it be before we finally stop the madness? I am not a pacifist. I fully realize that there are people out there who would do us harm.  But I think we need to be careful in spending lives and treasure.  We are coming up to 2014 which is the date that President Obama has determined is time to exit Afghanistan. There will be all kinds of pressure on his to leave troops behind for "training" or "support." Will he be strong enough to resist? I wonder.

Iraq - The One Decade Anniversary

Much is being written and said on this unbearably sad anniversary about the totally useless, unnecessary, immoral war that we perpetrated on the people of Iraq. I can hardly bear to read or listen to it.  Words, written and spoken, are so antiseptic, so removed from the horrors, the suffering, the destruction as to be in another world.  I see pictures of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and I have an overwhelming desire to tear the picture into tiny pieces and burn the pieces. 

4500 young Americans dead, 10s of thousands with missing body parts and messed up minds, untold numbers of Iraqis dead or injured. 

Here are two of my many earlier blog posts on Iraq and Afghanistan:

1/11/2009

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now.

I don't have a clue as to what I can do to promote this idea but I am going to start finding out. 

It's a little thing but I sent an e-mail to change.gov

I'm going to find a way to work on this.

10/27/2009

Afghanistan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?wpisrc=newsletter

One person speaks out against the idiotic war in Afghanistan and it makes the Washington Post. Hallelujah! I suppose I should be grateful for that. But I'm not--I am furious that we are such utter sheeple that we are being led down this primrose path AGAIN. God how I wish we would bring back the draft so that everyone would have a stake in whether to continue this madness or not. How I wish we were forced to pay in full every year what this costs. But of course we won't--we will continue the war because you really don't have to send your children to be killed or maimed and we can continue with our tax cuts and piddling around with health care because we simply borrow more money from China. 

There is no "win" in Afghanistan; we will simply keep pouring more beautiful young men into that bottomless pit and the ones that aren't swallowed up will be sold to the highest bidder to repay all the money we borrowed to finance the war in the first place.

Same goes for Iraq.

Will we continue on the same path of perpetual war? Iran? Korea? I don't know. It makes me sick to think of it.

U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by Half

Well, it's a  start.

From today's NY Times:

“We always knew that what they were planning to do didn’t make sense,” said Kenneth M. Pollack, of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. “It’s increasingly becoming clear that they are horribly overstaffed given what they are able to accomplish.”       

The Waste of It All

Rod Dreher has a good post up about the end of the Iraq War.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2011/10/28/iraq-the-waste-of-it-all/

"The waste of it all." sums it up for the Iraq war.
"The waste of it all." will sum it up when we end the war in Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Uganda, and the others that we don't even know about yet.

One War Down, At Least One to Go

President Obama has declared victory in Iraq and the troops not attached to the U.S. Embassy will be leaving Iraq by the end of the year.  (My immediate thought was "End of which year??" but it appears that it is by the end of this year.)  Thank goodness, it's finally coming to an end.  I am still suspicious that they will be moved from Iraq to Somalia, Yemen, Uganda, etc. but then I am a suspicious person.

My suggestion is that he declare victory in Afghanistan and save us all a lot of trouble (and lives and limbs).  Whether we declare victory today, next year, or five years from now, the future of Afghanistan is up to the Afghans. 

I will continue my weekly letter writing campaign to the President about this matter.  (Hey, it can't hurt...)

America Goes Dark

is the title of Paul Krugman's column in yesterday's NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

It's an excellent article on how cities are literally turning off the streetlights to save money, how teachers and policemen are being laid off, and roads & bridges falling into disrepair. We are all aware of how strapped for money state and local governments are because they are caught in a bind between The Great Recession and the requirement to balance their budgets. I go along with him up to a point. He focuses on the need to increase taxes on the richest 2%. Fine, OK, go for it, increase taxes on the richest 2%, let the tax cuts expire. We will pay more in taxes but we'll survive. What I don't understand is his completely skipping the elephant in the room--What if we weren't funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if that money was available for lights and education and roads or research for cancer? We are pouring borrowed money into a neverending sinkhole. What's next--Yemen, back to Somalia??
Because we are borrowing the money to pay for the war and have no draft, we feel none of the need to bring these wars to an end.

Afghanistan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?wpisrc=newsletter

One person speaks out against the idiotic war in Afghanistan and it makes the Washington Post. Hallelujah! I suppose I should be grateful for that. But I'm not--I am furious that we are such utter sheeple that we are being led down this primrose path AGAIN. God how I wish we would bring back the draft so that everyone would have a stake in whether to continue this madness or not. How I wish we were forced to pay in full every year what this costs. But of course we won't--we will continue the war because you really don't have to send your children to be killed or maimed and we can continue with our tax cuts and piddling around with health care because we simply borrow more money from China.
There is no "win" in Afghanistan; we will simply keep pouring more beautiful young men into that bottomless pit and the ones that aren't swallowed up will be sold to the highest bidder to repay all the money we borrowed to finance the war in the first place.
Same goes for Iraq.

Maybe there's hope

When Nicholas D. Kristoff, Thomas Friedman, and George Will are all urging caution in getting more entangled in Afghanistan, maybe there's hope that we won't make another hellacious mistake.

Here are links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06kristof.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06friedman.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102912.html

I know that no one listens to me but maybe, just maybe these three (2 on the left and 1 on the right) professional noisemakers will get enough attention to stop us from totally getting into another quagmire.

The Wars Series Week #2

We need to get out of Iraq & Afghanistan.

Suicide bombers killed 28 on Sunday and 33 on Tuesday in Iraq. I think it will be a bloodbath when we leave no matter if it is 10 months or 10 years from now. And there is no chance of a good outcome in Afghanistan either.

The Wars Series Week #1

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

I wonder how many weeks I will have to run this series.

Thought for the week:
"Almost anything is easier to get into than to get out of." ~ A. Allen

We need to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now.

I don't have a clue as to what I can do to promote this idea but I am going to start finding out.

It's a little thing but I sent an e-mail to change.gov

I'm going to find a way to work on this.