Put Some Lipstick On That Pig

Dear Mr. President,

Back in the 2008 presidential campaign, you called Iraq a dumb war and Afghanistan a just war. You’ve pursued your “just” war with a vengeance: surged from 34,000 to over 100,000 troops, spent more than $400 billion, 1,000 American lives and, by one estimate, 10,000 Afghan soldiers and at least 10,000 civilians. (Nobody counts the number of dead insurgents/militants/jihadists because they don’t count; they’re the other, the evil-doers, the haters of freedom. And nobody asks why.) Afghanistan is a deeply unpopular war even though there’s no visible opposition; 60% of Americans oppose it and that number’s been consistent for a long time. They may not be marching and protesting but they know your “just” war turned out to be just another dumb immoral war with no possibility of winning (however you define win) and nothing in Afghanistan will change as a result. In an interview I watched today, an ex-general said we could send 500,000 troops to Afghanistan for another 10 years, spend $10 trillion and at the end of the 10 years nothing would be any different than it is right now. As it was in Vietnam, so it shall be in Afghanistan. Politicians (and political generals) never learn that fighting a war against people on their home turf is lost the minute it starts because we’re temporary and they’re not and all they have to do is wait us out. These impoverished sandal-clad people armed with little more than Kalashnikov rifles and homemade bombs defeated the Russians in the 80s and the Americans in the 2000s. They understand that even if we don’t. At least not publicly. I realize pulling out before the election is the kiss of death politically, and I get why you don’t want to talk about it – only one speech all year when you signed that hokey agreement with Karzai in Kabul and not a single mention of Afghanistan on your web site that I could find (maybe your spin doctors couldn’t put enough lipstick on that pig to sell it to the public). Or maybe everyone just lost interest. But the troops coming home with missing limbs or traumatized by what they’ve been through haven’t lost interest. Nor their families, nor the people we brutalize and kill and imprison (thousands in Parwan detention center on Bagram Air Base alone) or urinate on (is urinating on a dead Taliban fighter any more disrespectful of a human being than killing him or is this really what war is all about in the end?) Your war in Afghanistan is evil, Mr. President, and you are its father.