Dumb Wars

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. Iraq was a war based on lies with no purpose other than to protect our “national interests,” i.e. “business interests”—access to oil. Iraq was no victory. It accomplished nothing. It left a nation in tatters and chaos. It was a dumb war, Bush’s war. Afghanistan is also a dumb war, Mr. President, and that one is your war, your responsibility. Afghanistan, like Iraq, like Vietnam, like all wars based on lies and hubris, ignorance and injustice was long ago lost and everyone knows it. Even the generals have given up. Dexter Filkins’ article, “After America,” in last week’s New Yorker, paints a grim picture of Afghanistan, far different than the “progress” you proclaim: U.S. diplomats who don’t dare go beyond the guarded walls of their compound and have no knowledge of the people or conditions beyond the gates; Taliban openly operating unhindered within a few miles of U.S. and NATO bases; huge swaths of the country ceded to Taliban rule. He describes a meeting of provincial officials with a U.S. Lieutenant Colonel whose ignorance, arrogance and dismissiveness is stunning. A militia leader describes U.S. support this way: “Once a month, an American drives out here in his Humvee with a bag of money.” It’s common knowledge that the Afghan Army is incapable of holding off the Taliban without U.S. support. After America, the government will collapse, civil war will erupt, the Taliban will take over and everything will be as it was before our invasion. Mission not accomplished. Here’s the view from an Afghani businessman: “The Americans have failed to build a single sustainable institution here. All they have done is make a small group of people very rich.” Afghanistan was bin Laden’s base in 2001 but no politician has ever publicly asked why they attacked us. There has been no debate, no investigation of root causes, no change of failed policies. We have learned nothing. We continue to terrorize the world and the poison of war and injustice infects our own society. There is no justification for war, Mr. President. All wars are dumb wars and your covert wars in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, the Philippines, your Targeted Assassinations, your Kill Lists are all war crimes. You have turned us into a nation of militarized barbarians and terrorists. You are a stain on America, a disgrace to humanity.