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The Wright Perspective℠
Social Commentary from the C-Suite to Main Street℠
A Blog by Gary Wright II
The truth about Afghanistan
Monday, October 19th, 2009
UPDATE 5/5/2011 - On Sunday, May 1st, 2011 President Barack Obama announced that Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces at a compound in Pakistan. From several reliable sources I had heard that Bin Laden had been dead for many years. If what the White House says is true - we were wrong. I apologize for the error.
I have all of the confidence in our military and my fellow veterans, but there is absolutely no way we can ever "win the war" in Afghanistan. This fact has nothing to do with our troops - it is our past leadership that is the problem.
Here's why:
First, Afghanistan has no central government. The people are divided into many different ethnic groups based on language, religion, clans, and other factors. We are trying to force a central democratic government on a people who do not want one.
Second, whenever you hear the term "free elections" run like hell because even our own US elections are fixed. This isn't a conspiracy theory - for proof there is a very good documentary called American Blackout which captured the actual video footage of what when on during two of our elections.
We blew the little credibility we had by fixing the Afghan election so our guy would win. We keep proclaiming that Hamid Karzai is the elected president - but he DID NOT win the "election." Again, this is not a conspiracy theory - it was documented by the international Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) which is ran by the United Nations. Some say that as many as one-third of the votes cast in the election were fraud. When the ECC investigated 2,000 complaints they first ordered a recount of the votes, then they invalidated the votes in three provinces.
A sobering report from General McChrystal said that this war would be lost within the next year without sending at least 40,000 more troops. The White House says they will not send more troops until the election issues are resolved or as they put it: "until it determines the new government is a 'true partner'." So does that mean unless our guy gets elected we are out of there?
Reporter Richard Engel did an excellent documentary called "Tip of the Spear" which shows what daily life is really like for our troops over there. To "draw fire" from the enemy, we are using our troops as bait. They will send out a patrol just hoping that they will be shot. The terrain of the mountains is permanently crippling most of our troops. The mountains are very steep and full of loose stone rubble. Our troops are destroying their ankles, knees, and backs by carrying their heavy gear up the sides of the mountains.
Originally, we said our goal was to capture Osama Bin Laden - but he has been dead for many months now. We did not kill him - he died of natural causes. My source for this was Bhutto who let this slip out during an interview. She was assassinated within just days after that interview. Her death combined with the fact that there have been no new videotapes of Bin Laden since that time leads me to believe this is a fact.
War is a means to an end, and I don't feel like we have any realistic goals to achieve over there. We are not defeating terrorism, we are only fueling the hatred that breeds terrorism. We need to bring all of our troops home and we need to do it right now.
-- Gary Wright II
Related blog entries:
Excerpts of the President's Address to the Nation was posted on 12/1/2009.
The President's Address to the Nation complete text was posted on 12/1/2009.