Dumb Wars (continued)

Dear Mr. President,

“War has no winners except those who feed off death and destruction; the arms makers and dealers, and the politicians who use war to gain and maintain power.” That started yesterday’s letter. It is a fundamental fact. The White House web site limits messages to 2,500 characters (including spaces) so I had to cut yesterday’s letter short. This continues my thoughts on Dumb Wars. My question is, since diplomats and government officials, even the generals now say that Afghanistan is a lost cause, that there will be no change, no democracy in place when we leave in 2014, no self-sustaining economy, no defeat of the Taliban, and no end to the misery and destruction that occurs, and will continue to occur there every day, why is it that by the end of this year we will still have more troops there than when you took office in January 2009? Why are we still killing and being killed there? Why do Americans still come home in caskets  or with mangled bodies? With arms and legs missing, faces blown off and minds ravaged by violence? Why do we continue to spend $10 billion a month on a war that was long ago lost? Why do we spend money for war but not for peace? Why do you continue the charade of a measured drawdown and handoff to the Afghan Army when you know they cannot possibly prevent a civil war without ongoing massive U.S. aid? We have given their Army, militias and police Humvees that cost U.S. taxpayers $160,000 each but when they break down they have no parts and no knowledge how to fix them. Most recruits are illiterate, most have no loyalty to the corrupt Karzai government. And the cost to equip and maintain their Army is approximately $8 billion a year, double Afghanistan’s entire GDP. The Filkins article quotes official after official saying that the only thing that will prevent civil war is a strong Afghan Army but few doubt they will collapse within months, the government’s corrupt leaders will take flight to their luxury estates in Qatar and other Middle East countries with their looted U.S. tax dollars, and we will have destabilized yet another area of the Middle East. We have a lousy track record with our vaunted military might. Iraq is now an ally of Iran, nuclear Pakistan is more enemy than ally, there are now twice as many “al Qaeda-affiliated insurgents” in Yemen as when you stepped up your covert war there. Do we learn nothing? Do you learn nothing? Or do you only dream of power and glory, of Empire, of ruling the earth?