Afghanistan: Gut Check On What We Are Doing To Ourselves
May 6, 2013
Over the weekend, three more American soldiers lost their lives to IED roadside bombs in Afghanistan while two lost their lives to Afghanistan troops turning the weapons that we provided them—and shot our own young men. Military people call those deaths: “insider attacks.” (Source: Associated Press report) The Afghanistans we gave billions of dollars and sent our finest men to “free” them—continue killing our military personnel at the drop of a hat.
Five young kids serving our country in that 11 year war lived in constant danger of dying every day in that backward, goat herder and Islamic-dominated crazy country. Understand this: illiteracy runs at 80+ percent in Afghanistan. That country suffers dozens of war lords competing for dominance for the last 1,400 years of Islamic mayhem. NBC’s Brian Williams reported last week that our CIA funneled suitcases full of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan President Karzai to pay off tribal leaders—so they would support our troops. Otherwise, those warlords just as soon kill our boys.
What did Congress, George W. Bush and now Barack Obama get us into? What have we accomplished in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why didn’t we leave a week after bin Laden saw the raw end of an M-14 in via Seal Team Six? What in the name of common sense are we doing to ourselves and our young men serving in uniform?
Answer: in the final analysis, we killed a lot of people and their kids, and they killed a lot of our kids. Result: a lot of death, but we accomplished nothing in the way of national security as proven by our Islamic bomber immigrants at the Boston Marathon two weeks ago.
All those kids died in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan for the Military Industrial Complex run by massive munitions corporations, Halliburton and anyone else who benefits from making war products.
All of it based on a lie! Saddam Hussein did not own one, single weapon of mass destruction that he could turn onto the people of the United States. Not one! George Bush lied, then lied some more, and Obama continued and continues the lie in Afghanistan. Our complicit Congress and the past two presidents should be brought up on criminal charges for killing so many people without any warrant whatsoever.
After 10 years in Iraq and 4,200 deaths along with tens of thousands of our finest kids being blown up or emotionally blown to pieces with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Several thousand of our kids already committed suicide from their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts expect no less than 150,000 to 200,000 former U.S. combat troops will commit suicide in the years ahead from their horrific experiences in the Middle East. As I documented in an earlier column two years ago, 200,000 to 225,000 Vietnam combat troops who walked out of Vietnam in one piece—later killed themselves. Endless thousands more dove into drugs, alcohol, divorces and homelessness. Thousands of kids lost their fathers to war’s long term insanity and emotional destruction.
Every single one of our “kids” that died in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan—died for nothing but money by mega-corporations. I am astounded how the American Military Industrial Complex can manipulate the American people like sheep to follow their propaganda for 10 friggin’ long years of lying to us. Back when I attended college during Vietnam, we marched in the streets to “Stop the war…hell no, we won’t go….” Why? We didn’t want to get killed for no reason whatsoever.
Why do those five kids’ deaths in Afghanistan this week distress me? My father served in the US Marine Corps and died while in service to our country. His death wrecked our family. From my infant brother John who never saw his father to my own emotional turmoil for years if not decades. My brother Rex suffered horrific emotional trauma and my sister Linda became a zombie for five years. My mother kept us together with her heroic strength. But none of our lives recovered and our dad’s death changed our destinies.
My pain reaches out to those five kids’ families who just received the news that their citizen-soldiers died over the weekend. They’re all crying right now. They weep in shock, pain and bewilderment. They will suffer for years and decades to come. If those troops enjoyed wives and families, their offspring will forever be changed without dad.
Ironically, our all volunteer Army ingests young men, turns them into killers and spits them out emotionally wrecked or returns them back home in caskets.
War Is a Racket
U.S. Major General Smedley Butler said, “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
“A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the WWI, a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?”
You can bet that draft dodging Dick Cheney never shouldered a rifle, but he made millions with Halliburton. George W. Bush smoked weed and snorted cocaine while in the safety of the Texas National Guard, but 58,300 less fortunate American kids got blown away. Today, Bush’s worth exceeds multiple millions while our country stands trillions in debt from the wars he and Cheney started in Iraq.
Sickening: the American people sit on their fat rear ends without so much as a whimper. Just serve up their kids and watch the death continue.
Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.
He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges. He works to bring about sensible world population balance at his website: www.frostywooldridge.com
Frosty Wooldridge is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
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