Endless War

Well, we're over a year and a half into President Obama's first term and we're still involved in wars both in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president has told us that he's ending our obligations in both countries, but so far nothing concrete has happened. He told Americans that we would be out of Iraq completely by the end of next year, and would start reducing the troops in Afghanistan by the middle of next year.

But you'd have to be a pretty naive person to believe either of those scenarios. We're already hearing rumblings from both countries that more time will be needed to accomplish our goals (whatever those are). Lt. General Babakar Zebari, Iraqi Army chief of staff, said last Wednesday that a U.S. withdrawal at the end of next year would be "premature". How much more time does he think is needed? He say his troops will not be "fully ready" until 2020 -- another 10 YEARS!

And things are no better in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus, U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, is expected to speak to the media this weekend and start the talk that more time will be needed in Afghanistan. Supposedly, this is the view of a growing number of officers (although they won't say how much time is needed -- probably don't want to upset or depress the American public).

A senior administration official said, "Their argument is that while we've been in Afghanistan for nine years, only in the past 12 months or so have we started doing this right, and we need to give this some time and think about what our long-term presence in Afghanistan should look like." Notice he used the term "long-term presence". That doesn't sound like they are just asking for a few more months.

With an election coming up, I'm sure the government would love for Americans to think these two wars are winding down. But the reality is that ain't happening. We've already been in Afghanistan for nine years, and before these two wars are really over they may well make it look like our involvement in Vietnam was a short one.

It's time to pull out our troops and put an end to these endless wars (which are accomplishing nothing except more deaths and the creation of more enemies). This is the very definition of futility and we need to end it now!