Time To Go...really!
The most recent massacre in Afghanistan--sixteen dead, including women and children shot by an apparently deranged American soldier--speaks to the damage that war and occupation causes on both sides. Trouble is determining what the sides are, and whose side are we on?
The greater point is why we are in Afghanistan in the first place. There can only be one answer: that country’s rich mineral and oil deposits.
With the aim of securing our hold on these resources, we have not only dehumanized the the Afghan people, our policies are obviously having the effect of dehumanizing our very own sons and daughters...not all of them, to be sure, but too many are coming home damaged goods, and I don't see anything to show for it.
Many of our soldiers are serving in Afghanistan because they believe we’re there for noble reasons. Are we? Of course we’re quick to wrap a flag around the supposed good of our “mission”. But the truth is, they're not fighting “for us” or our freedom. They are there to support corporate policies which, it seems, is our military's main reason to exist. President Obama seems powerless to override the will of the Pentagon--the "military/industrial complex" as President Eisenhower called it--and I challenge a Republican president to thwart it either...if they would even want to!
The only blessing, if you can call it that, we can hope will come from this latest tragedy in Afghanistan is the questions we should continue to ask of our elected leaders:
What is the definition of “winning”?
Do ANY of our military ventures serve other than corporate interests?
Who is really running the show?
Have we “lost Afghanistan” simply because we cannot secure the deals our companies want...and want so badly that “collateral damage” is just the price of doing business no matter which side it's on?
Our soldiers are our flag. What do either of them represent...really? Just who are we invading for?