April 01, 2015

WAIT! WHAT? 2014 WITHDRAWAL? 2017?

The White House claimed that combat operations in Afghanistan was over in December. And we were to withdraw 5000 troops. APRIL FOOLS!  While we were busy psychoanalyzing a german pilot, Obama reversed his own plan. We'll now leave 9,800 troops there. But we'll also keep some forces there until 2017. We'll also keep funding the war there up until then and after that--it has cost trillions so far.

Yet Obama had originally promised we'd be out by 2014 and revised that. Another of his empty campaign promises. This is the 3rd revision of his plans to draw down troops since May. Which means that combat operations are not over and that the longest war in our history continues along. Because we have no desire to win this war. Try explaining that to recruits. We're back in Iraq. We're back in Afghanistan but look! A plane crashed over the Alps! Look! Justin Bieber got roasted and some of the jokes may have been inappropriate. Look! Jon Stewart's replacement isn't as funny. That's what's on our TV news--not what our government is actually doing with the lives of the young men and women who most of you claim to support. But you have no clue what they're up to overseas or why. Afghans like to brag that their rocky, forbidding terrain has enabled them to escape military defeat since Alexander The Great. Seems like they're right. How many lives and trillions of dollars do we want to throw down that rabbit hole to prop up the world's largest heroin exporter? You can't object to something you don't know about. Supporting the troops doesn't mean trusting every military mission they're sent on.

MORE:   WSWS.ORG