Tell Joe Klein that getting out of Afghanistan is not 'stupid'

[Enrique]

Run time: 01:12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdKUW2OTvno   Posted on YouTube: January 11, 2011 By YouTube Member: bravenewfoundation Views on YouTube: 1962   Posted on DU: January 11, 2011 By DU Member: Enrique Views on DU: 313

 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald/tell-joe-klein-its-stupid_b_807124.html

Let's talk about stupid for a minute.

The U.S. has increased troop levels in Afghanistan every year since the initial invasion, and every year we've seen an increased level of violence in Afghanistan. President Obama and General Petraeus promised--twice!--that huge troop increases would help "protect the population" of Afghanistan and break Taliban momentum. Yet over the course of their major escalations, the heightened troop levels failed to protect Afghan civilians, who suffered more war-related deaths than the year before. And, according to NATO and the Pentagon's own statistics and reporting, the estimated number of insurgents is exactly the same as last year, and they continue to grow in geographic and operational reach. After all this failure of troop increases to stem the violence, Secretary Gates just announced another troop increase.

That sounds pretty stupid to me.

American workers are drowning in an economic crisis. Huge numbers of us remain unemployed, and hundreds of thousands are giving up on finding work at all. States all over the country are slashing their social safety nets to shreds, cutting things like health care for kids in poverty, while at the same time the federal government is charging their state an amount larger than their states' deficits to continue the Afghanistan War. While 68 percent of Americans worry that the war's costs affect our ability to fix problems here at home, we're wasting $2 billion a week on a war that's not making us safer.

That sounds pretty stupid to me.

Klein's wrong about why people hold "journalists" like him in low regard. The reason people hold some talking heads in low regard is that we're tired of being shoveled the same, tired "Very Serious People" drivel that's kept us in a brutal, futile war for almost a decade. The Afghanistan War isn't making us safer and it's not worth the cost. The writing has been on the wall for years. Waiting even one more day to start bringing troops home is...well, you know.

(...)

[molly77]

1. WE were never given a good reason to go to war with Afghanistan to start with.

Esp. when you consider most of the 9/11 high jackers were from Saudi Arabia.