That Other War
While surge supporters have been hooting ala 1984 Bears fans about the recent downturn of violence in Iraq, that other war that’s going on has gotten much worse.
In case you’ve forgotten, because the media stopped reporting on all but the most heinous attacks once the election season began, we still have a war going on. A global war. Right now most of the fighting is occuring in Afghanistan, and Iraq, with covert operations ongoing in a number of other countries, including Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, and Iran.
The Taliban, which was host to the planners of 9/11, has become reinvigorated due to a number of developments:
1. Our shift in resources towards Iraq enabled them to regroup after the initial ousting in November of 2001.
2. Pakistan has been less than helpful in combating insurgents and Jihadists in the mountainous range that borders the nations.
3. The US has scored a number of public relations blunders (usually civilians being killed by airstrikes)that has given renewed support to the Taliban and its allies in the region.
This week we were reminded, in grim fashion, that Afghanistan is still a warzone, almost 7 years after Nato forces started engaging the Islamic extremists in the country.
7 years is a long time. To give you some perspective from a personal standpoint, when the war on terror began, I was starting my senior year of high school. Now I’m a college grad (on the 5 year plan.) When the war on terror began, I’d had a total about 5 wine coolers in my life. Today, I’m a full-blown average 23 year old part-time alcoholic. When the war on terror began, Joe Torre’s Yankees were just winding down their reign of dominance, Marilyn Manson was still relevant, and nobody outside the state had even heard of Barack Obama.
7 years is a long time to be at war, yet neither Mccain or Obama are planning on ending it any time soon.
We are fighting a nebulous enemy on a dozen different fronts, with no tangible markers for succes or failure, no limits to the amount of money we will spend, and no sensible leader calling for an end to this ulimited orgy of thoughtless destruction.
Terrorism is a job for intelligence agencies. Armies are for destroying nations, not building them. Until we get a Commander-in-Chief who is willing to acknowledge the absurdity of the whole situation and get us out of it, this war on terror will never, ever, end.
