2,000 And Counting

Dear Mr. President,

The number of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan officially passed the 2,000 mark today—2,001 according to The New York Times, 2,017 according to the web site, iCasualties. Almost 1,400 of those deaths occurred on your watch; that is, you condemned 1,400 Americans and thousands of Afghans and troops from other countries to die in a senseless immoral war. Another 8,000 Americans were wounded, people missing parts of their bodies and parts of their minds. People, unlike you, who have experienced the hell of war and been forever damaged and brutalized by it. We are still spending $10 billion a month on this “War on Terror” and for what? To enrich the war profiteers and the corrupt government of Hamid Karzai? The war, nicknamed “Enduring Freedom,” may be enduring but it has nothing to do with freedom, it’s all about control of natural resources, especially the Middle East’s oil. We are just the latest foreign invaders in a long line of foreign invaders and in spite of the generals’ perennial claims of “turned corners,” “fragile gains” and “progress,” we have turned no corners and made no progress. We have ceded large swaths of the country, like last year’s retreat from the previously declared “critically strategic” Pech Valley, to the Taliban; insurgents attack at will anywhere, at any time, as witnessed by their siege in April of the heavily fortified Western embassies and NATO headquarters in downtown Kabul; the resort hotel takeover by insurgents this week; the daily suicide bombings; the daily attacks on NATO patrols; and the rising number of “green-on-blue” attacks in which Afghan troops kill U.S. troops. In spite of the most powerful military force in history, in spite of the most advanced killing machinery in the history of mankind, in spite of advanced technologies like night vision, unmanned drones and laser-guided missiles, we still are unable to quell what is constantly characterized as a terrorist-Taliban insurgency consisting of ragtag groups of bearded fanatics with 30-year-old weapons, homemade IEDs and suicide bombers willing to blow themselves up along with the hated invaders. No matter how you and your generals spin it, Mr. President, there is no glory or honor in war, only shame and a legacy of hate. One last fact: the U.S. has not won a war since August 1945 and whether you recognize it or not, this one was lost the day it started. Afghanistan is Vietnam redux and the shame of Afghanistan will be your legacy.