Tag: Afghanistan

NaPoWriMo Day 26

On By WinstonIn Enlightenment, Global Issues, NaPoWriMo, Personal, Poetry, Politics, Society, Values, Warfare1 Comment

I know that the sentiments in today’s poem probably won’t be popular with some people. That’s okay. I’m kinda used to people disagreeing with me. They have that right. Just don’t think that outrage is going to change the truth of my words here.

I would also like to point out that this is nothing to do with the fine people who wear the uniform in harms way. This is about the ones who send them out to bleed, break and die for no reason.

OUR ENDLESS WAR

Now sound the trumpet, beat the drum,

Cry war throughout the land.

The time has come to teach our foes,

The end is close at hand.

They do not think or act like us,

Barbarians or worse.

If they will not be more like us,

Their name shall be a curse.

If they would try, then they could be,

Just like us here at home.

But they refuse the gifts we bring,

So our troops we let roam.

To do with bullets and with bombs,

What words and cash can’t do.

Those who cling to their culture now,

Defiance they shall rue.

We preach of freedom only if,

They become just like me.

But if they won’t, then rubble mounds,

Will their whole nation be.

So woe betide the people who,

Their lives choose to defend.

We’ll murder, bomb and burn their lands,

In wars that never end.

Our cause is just, this is a fact,

Because we have said so.

But when the slaughter finally ends,

Was it? We’ll never know.

The ones we kill are gone it’s true,

But those we leave behind.

No counselling or help they get,

For broken, tortured mind.

They’ll wallow in the blood we’ve spilt,

From cradle to the grave.

When all you’ve known is blood and death,

To strike back is not brave.

The only lesson we have taught,

With all that we have done.

If you don’t like how someone lives,

Life’s cheap. Kill everyone.

We’ve proven that, you can’t force change,

There must be something more.

A way of peace and of respect,

Not endless, bloody war.

Winston

Bring Them All Home Alive

On By WinstonIn Canadian Military, Global Issues, Politics, Society, WarfareLeave a comment

The NATO mission in Afghanistan just sustained another giant kick in the groin. The head of the NATO mission has just announced the immediate cessation of joint Afghan/NATO patrols. To date, these joint patrons have been the norm and represented the cornerstone in the UN plan to train indigenous police and military forces to assume security duties from UN troops.

Why are these patrols being discontinued? Mostly, it’s because in the past year 51 UN troops have died in so called “Green on Blue” attacks. That’s the term they roll out when “rogue” elements of the Afghan police/military kill their UN trainers. This is probably the single greatest tacit admission yet that the Afghan mission is a total bust.

So how can they fix this problem? They can’t. This is the sad truth. The NATO commander is doing the only thing possible. Refusing to put NATO troops into unnecessary danger. The mission is ending shortly, so why risk lives for no gains? Keep the troops as safe as possible and let them ride out the end of the deployment with absolute minimum exposure possible.

There have been enough deaths to assuage the U.S. rage over 9/11. NATO may feel honor-bound to stick it out to the very end of their commitment, but that’s no reason to sacrifice more troops in this un-winnable debacle. Afghanistan isn’t changing any time soon. There are some parts of the society who long for change. Unfortunately those who want to maintain the status quo are much more aggressive about it. Contrary to all the propaganda that came out later, Afghanistan only got invaded because the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden. Saving the Afghan people from the Taliban only became a mission when Osama proved harder to locate than a socially conscious Republican.

They never set out to save Afghanistan. That was the worst sort of mission creep. With the impending drawdown of NATO involvement in the Afghan theater, it’s small wonder the indigenous troops are increasingly susceptible to Taliban recruitment. It’s one thing to have joined up to fight side by side with the invaders. It’s a whole other deal if you can show that you just wanted to get close enough to kill them.

Refusing to let the locals build credit with the incoming regime by killing NATO troops is probably the first smart decision made since the invasion. Now let’s make another one and get the hell out before anymore troops die for nothing.

Bring them all home alive.

Cheers, Winston

An Exercise In Futility On A Grand Scale

On By WinstonIn Global Issues, Politics, Values, WarfareLeave a comment

I usually enjoy my morning news read. It’s not always good news, I but it always makes me think. That’s normally a good thing, but not this morning. This morning its just frustrating. This morning I was reading about Afghanistan.

According to the Associated Press, Afghanistan is set to receive $16,000,000,000 through 2015. This is intended to show the Afghanistan that even though we’ve gone home, we haven’t abandoned them. While this may ease our consciences, I doubt it’s going to be much comfort to the dead on all sides in this most pointless of conflicts.

Before everyone rushes to remind me about Osama bin Laden, or the evils of the Taliban let me clear up a couple of things. Osama bin Laden wasn’t captured because we invaded Afghanistan. He wasn’t found livng in an Afghan cave, he was found and murdered in a nice suburban compound IN THE COUNTRY NEXT DOOR! That’s probably why it took ten years to find him. The second punchline in this comically unfunny joke is the Taliban.

When it became obvious that they weren’t going to find Osama any time soon, the invaders needed a new justification. That’s when they hit on the brilliant idea of saving Afghanistan (especially its women), from the Taliban. This is such a noble idea that I feel mildly embarrassed calling it idiocy. Unfortunately, it’s idiocy. Yes we kicked the Taliban out of power and installed our own little puppet regime (YAY!) but that hasn’t worked quite the way we thought it aught to. You see President Hamid Karzai is much more aware of local realities than are the minions of the invaders states.

What this means in practical terms is that he has been negotiating a power sharing plan with the Taliban. Ummmmm yeah, those same Taliban we invaded Afghanistan to get out of power. The guy we put in power is offering to bring them back into the government. That sounds like success to me. This is the same puppet president who announced a while back that if Pakistan went to war with the U.S. he would side with Pakistan. Not wanting to bite the hand that feeds (or in this case created) him, he went for the nice, solid groin kick instead. That’s political reality in Afghanistan.

Sadly, it takes more than ten years of warfare and half-assed social initiatives to undo centuries of cultural norms. That’s been the painful lesson learned by every invader of Afghanistan. You can defeat the army and capture the cities, but Afghanistan is neither of those things. Afghanistan is a proud, defiant people bound by centuries of tradition regardless of what anyone else does or thinks.

This was made painfully evident in another news story I read this morning. Al Jazeeara has a story about a woman who was accused of adultery and executed in the street in front of a cheering crowd. Earlier in the week, a woman and two of her children were beheaded by her ex-husband. This was described as the latest in a string of “honor killings”. Violence against women has increased sharply in the past year according to an independent human rights group. Odds are, it’s only going to get worse with the impending withdrawal of the invading armies that have encouraged at least the pretense of change.

The sad truth is that it can’t be changed from the outside unless you’re willing to commit to the long haul which is more in the nature of fifty to one hundred years of unrelenting effort both military and socio-economic. That’s how you make changes. We’ve once again proven that walking in, shooting some people and dropping a pile of cash is nothing more than a tragic and heartbreaking exercise in futility on a grand scale.

Cheers, Winston