Beware of Guys With Facial Hair, Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,
“20 Afghan Police Officers Killed in 2 Attacks, Including a Mass Poisoning” (today’s New York Times, p. A10). The news out of Afghanistan isn’t getting better. It may be buried deep in the paper but anyone paying attention can see our exit strategy isn’t working. “17 Afghan policemen who had just been trained by the Americans were drugged into comatose stupors by comrades, described later as Taliban infiltrators, while on duty. They were then shot to death…” Turns out the “policemen” were not real policemen but members of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), considered “irregular militias”—many recent Taliban fighters—and trained by U.S. Special Forces, the very people responsible for the brutality and killings reported in Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s Times. This is our exit strategy? These are the Afghan Security Forces we’re training to take over after we’re gone to make sure Al Qaeda can never again use Afghanistan as a base to launch an attack against us? The problem with the strategy is that these militias, created by U.S. Special Forces in their own image—equipped with weapons, high-end gear and facial hair just like their mentors—are regarded by the locals as no different than the Taliban or bandits. “Locals in the area were tired of the atrocities and crimes of these arbakais [irregulars], and their lives and properties were not safe,” said a Taliban spokesperson who took credit for the attack. I’m not saying that the Taliban speaks the god’s-honest truth (I don’t believe much coming from the Pentagon propaganda machine either) but it agrees with other reports over the past week. I know you’re really enamored of these guys—Seal Team6 and all that macho stuff—and regard them as heroes, but they’re not over here running amok, kidnapping, torturing and killing; you just might have a different opinion of them if they were. They’re not making friends for us or winning hearts and minds, Mr. President, they’re promoting fear and violence and people want them—and us—gone. The Afghans, like everyone else, just want to be left alone to live in peace but you don’t seem to get it (even if you did win a Nobel Peace Prize) and neither does the Taliban. But in spite of the obvious, it looks like you’re staying the course, sticking with your strategy of empire and doubling down, arming and training Syrian rebels, opening a new drone base in Niger… The business of America is War! And business is booming thanks to Obama. That’s your legacy, Mr. President.