And The Killing Goes On

If there is one area that disturbs me the most about President Obama (who I sincerely hope gets re-elected), it is in his handling of the war in Afghanistan. I, like most of the people who voted for him, had hoped he would see the senseless slaughter going on there, and realizing that nothing was being accomplished (except to create new enemies of the U.S.), would put an end to it. Unfortunately, he just continued the failed Bush policy, and actually extended the war by several more years. The current ending date is the end of 2014, but there is no assurance that will not be extended again.

I know the lie that was told to get us into the war -- that we had to do it to get Osama bin Laden. I even fell for that lie myself back in 2001. But back then people didn't realize (and weren't told) that the Taliban government had actually offered to turn Osama over to Western authorities, as long as he was tried by an international court in the Hague (instead of given a kangaroo court in the United States). That was a reasonable offer, and should have been accepted. But that wasn't good enough for the Bush administration. They didn't want justice. They wanted revenge -- and they wanted it bloody.

And we learned recently that even bloody revenge didn't require an invasion and seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. Navy Seal Team Six showed us that a small team of properly trained professionals was all that was needed to get the job done. Osama is now dead. But the war and the killing goes on, and nothing seems to be getting accomplished. We should have looked at the Russian intervention in Afghanistan and learned from it, but we were blinded by our American exceptionalism -- sure in the knowledge that we could accomplish what no other country has been able to do.

Well, we haven't accomplished any more than the Russians (or numerous other invaders) did. But the killing goes on. Last Saturday, the death toll of United States soldiers reached 2,000. That's the official count of our own government. The independent organization, icasualities, puts the American death toll at 2,125. In addition, other coalition members have lost 1,066 of their soldiers (including 433 British soldiers). Also, 10,000 members of the Afghan security forces have died, and a minimum of 20,000 innocent civilians have died (although that figure is probably much higher).

Most of these deaths can be laid at the feet of George W. Bush, but President Obama must accept his share also -- since he should have ended this insanity soon after taking office. But the killing goes on. When will it be enough?

Afghanistan - More Death, Less Progress

If a person were to accept what President Obama and military leaders are saying about the war in Afghanistan they might think that war is being won. Unfortunately, that is not true. After ten years of war, the only thing that is increasing is the number of people being killed. For coalition troops the last year (2010) was the deadliest year of the war.

There were 499 American soldiers killed in 2010 and 212 soldiers from other coalition nations, for a total of 711 coalition troops killed. That is nearly 200 more deaths than in 2009 and nearly 400 more deaths than in 2008. So far, there have been 76 coalition troops killed in 2011 (49 Americans) and the fighting, which is done mainly in the summer there, has not really cranked up yet.

And it's not just the deaths of soldiers that is climbing in that war-torn country. The deaths of innocent civilians also reached a record high in 2010. The United Nations has reported that at least 2,777 Afghan civilians were killed last year. That's 15% more than in 2009 (which was also a record-setting year).

Most of these civilian deaths were caused by the insurgent forces -- about 74% of them. But that means that 26% (or about 722 deaths) were caused by coalition forces, primarily American (or at least that is where the blame is laid since the U.S. started the war and has the largest number of troops there). And killing over 700 innocent civilians each year is certainly no way to win friends. A recent example is when troops killed 9 young boys who were just collecting firewood. This has created a huge protest among Afghanis (and resulted in Secretary of Defense Gates going to Afghanistan to personally apologize).

And while the "collateral damage" caused by coalition troops rises and new enemies are being created by it, the war itself is not going well. As I have posted before, most provinces in Afghanistan are either insecure or has a deteriorating security situation, with more provinces being insecure than in 2009. Even with 150,000 troops in Afghanistan the coalition forces are not able to control the country. When the insurgents are pushed out of one area they just move to another, and when coalition troops leave they move back in.

And in an effort to try and accomplish something in Afghanistan, the United States is now dialing back the expectations of just what can be accomplished -- especially in the area of human rights. The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was trying to push land reform in the country. They had established that this would require deeds granting women deeds to increase by 50%, regular media coverage on women's land rights, and teaching materials for secondary schools and universities that includes material on women's rights.

But all those goals have now been tossed out the window (and Afghan women tossed under the bus). As one senior American official said, "Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities. There's no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down." Women's rights are just "pet rocks" -- not worth defending?

We have already put our troops in the position of defending one of the most corrupt governments in that part of the world, a government elected through widespread voter fraud, and now we are not even going to expect that government to respect women's rights. In effect, we have thrown our own human rights principles out to protect a corrupt government that doesn't believe in any of those rights. Just like in Vietnam, we have reduced ourselves to protecting a government that doesn't deserve to be protected -- and we are throwing away the lives of both soldiers and innocent civilians to do it.

This war is an endless mess that is accomplishing nothing -- certainly not the goals it was originally meant to accomplish. The majority of the American people know this and want us to end it and bring our troops back home. It is just the politicians, who can't admit they were wrong and have mired us in an immoral war that can't be won, that want to continue this useless war. It's just being fought for the pride of politicians now, and that's not good enough. That's not worth a single life -- American or Afghani.

It's time to end this war and bring our troops home. Now -- not next year or sometime in the future. NOW!

Another #1 I Wish Texas Didn't Have

Texas has had a rash of embarrassing number one rankings such as most people without health insurance and most teen pregnancies. Now it looks like we've got another one to add to our list of shame. Texas leads the nation in workplace deaths.

In 2008, Texas had 457 fatal occupational injuries. That was 71 less deaths than in 2007, when the state logged 528 on-the-job deaths. But it was still good enough to lead the nations in this grisly statistic. California, with about a 50% larger population than Texas, finished in second place with 404 deaths.

While the number of deaths fell in Texas, it did the same nationwide. It would be nice if this was due to safer workplaces, but sadly, that is not true. It is far more likely the drop in deaths is due to the recession causing a large drop in the number of workers (7.2 fewer jobs nationwide).

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Cheryl Abbot said, "...we're attributing part of the decline to the slowdown in the economy. We don't have any statistical measures to say that this percentage of the decline was due to fewer employees in this state...but it's bound to have an effect."

The occupational groups with the most deaths were protection services, construction and extraction workers (such as oil and gas drilling). Twelve of the job-related deaths were to peace officers. About 94% of those killed were men, but 26 women also lost their lives.

Maybe it's time to strengthen OSHA (which was gutted during the Bush administration's 8-year worship of corporate profits).

Bloodiest Year For US Troops In Afghanistan

Saturday we got another reminder of just how incompetent the Bush administration really is. Last week, 2007 became the bloodiest year for U.S. troops in Iraq. Yesterday, the same thing became true in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, 6 more U.S. troops were killed in an ambush. That brought the total number of U.S. deaths in Afghanistan this year to 108. That is the highest total since the war began in 2001, and there are still several more weeks in this year.

It seems that the Taliban has been able to establish themselves and rebuild their forces in Pakistani safe areas just across the border. Now they are starting to step up their attacks in Afghanistan -- on both civilian and military targets. While the dictator in Pakistan was supposed to be helping us to control the Taliban and their allies, what he has really done is allow the Taliban to use the protection of his country to rebuild.

So what has Bush accomplished? Nothing it seems, except to cost a lot of lives. Osama still has not been captured. The Taliban is growing stronger. There are a record number of U.S. deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and neither of those governments can protect themselves. There seems to be no end in sight for either war.

Add this to the fact that Bush has spied on American citizens, authorized the torture of prisoners, played politics with the Justice Department, vetoed healthcare for children, screwed up Hurricane Katrina disaster relief, and created the largest budget deficits of any president. That should give you some idea of just how incompetent Bush truly is.

Is there any doubt that he's the worst president America's ever had?