America Needs To Get Out Of Afghanistan

By James Donahue

It has taken President Barack Obama weeks to respond to a military call for up to 40-60,000 additional troops to overpower the Taliban insurgents that have been building strength and killing American and UN soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

While we sympathize with this president . . . he inherited this war because the Bush Administration made a wrong turn after 9-11 . . . we believe making additional war in a place like Afghanistan and against skilled and historically undefeated mountain people such as those who live there, serves no purpose and will only be a waste of more American lives and money.

While we may not agree with the ideology and religious views or the mass production of drug products from the poppy flowers grown in that land, our fight after the 9-11 attacks was never against the Taliban. It was always against a radical Islamic militant group identified as the Al Qaeda which exists in many countries and owes allegiance to no national flag and represents no political country.

The recent elections in Afghanistan have shown the world that the puppet government put in place there after Americans invaded the place is corrupt and perhaps no improvement over what existed before we arrived.

Our military intelligence now believes most if not all of the Al Qaeda militants have slipped out of Afghanistan and are now engaged in heavy warfare and an attempted takeover of the Pakistan government.

Those in the know also believe the Afghans perceive us as occupiers now and they want us to go home. That the Taliban is attacking our troops is exactly what they did to drive the Russians out after a nine-year conflict in the 1980s. We are now entering our ninth year of fighting in Afghanistan with nothing to show for it.

It should be noted that the Taliban maintains a web site in which they voice their political views about what is happening. It is not posted in English so is difficult for Americans to understand. But we have been told that they voice no interest in staging terrorist attacks against the United States or any other nation. All they want is for our troops to leave so they can get on with their lives.

That seems like a reasonable request under the circumstances.