Ten years after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and subsequent launch of the "global war on terror," it's difficult to know what to say or where to begin.
Without rehashing a decade's worth of damning statistics about civilians killed, countries destroyed, societies shredded and multiple generations of people who are either maimed, widowed, childless, disabled, homeless, jobless, divorced, addicted, crippled, blind, suicidal, alcoholic, broken or otherwise disaffected by any one or a combination of our war making, it's hard to sum up all that has been lost and wasted during this ten year period.
As a nation, we've been deceived, divided, distracted and defrauded by our own government under the guise of personal safety and national security. We were told 9/11 came out of the blue because "they hate us for our freedom." We were told they had WMD (just as we do). We were warned of mushroom clouds (like the kind we made). We've heard so many stories about why we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq just as we've heard almost nothing about why we are executing an undeclared, undebated, illegal secretive predator drone war that targets people primarily in Pakistan but also Yemen, Somalia and Libya if not Afghanistan and Iraq as well.
We've been told by our highest elected officials, our chief legal authorities and our own military officers that torture is ok, imprisonment without charge or legal representation is acceptable, illegal kidnapping and rendering to secret 'black sites' in foreign countries is justifiable and spying and surveillance of our own citizens at home and abroad is in our best interest.
We've spent literally trillions of dollars to pursue destruction and death in countries whose citizens didn't threaten us. We've ceaselessly threatened other nations whom we accuse of pursuing weapons similar to the ones we ourselves produce, maintain and have used even as we maintain our own 'right' to use those same WMD against any nation at any time.
We continue to keep more than 700 foreign military bases or facilities in over a hundred countries demanding special 'rights and privileges' such as immunity from local laws and norms although we have not one foreign soldier on our soil nor would we ever accept it.
Despite vowing to remove every single last occupying soldier from Iraq by December 31, 2011, our government is now negotiating to keep 'trainers' in that country past the deadline. We say we are beginning to 'draw down' from Afghanistan even as we send new troops over to that broken country.
Supposedly we are helping rebuild and strengthen Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya as well, even as our own country is in such a dreadful state that Americans from the far right to the far left are literally up in arms and have taken to demonstrating across the country in the face of police beating, abuse and arrest.
In 2011, with no discussion, debate or even any notice from the public or media, our Congress and president voted to spend $725 Billion on the military for one fiscal year when we can't even keep our schools, libraries and hospitals properly open and operating.
What was once considered an 'outrage' under Bush is now considered the norm under Obama. We're told by some that the country faces 'grave danger from Socialist forces' in the government yet we have politicians in both "parties" who are beholden to only one power: the almighty Corporation which, being 'too big to fail,' must be rescued and revived at any cost, American workers be damned.
And even as we're told that the war(s) are 'winding down' or being brought to a 'responsible conclusion,' they continue to drain our resources, both human and financial, as well as our own national spirit and moral fiber. After Bush, many thought we would 'restore our good reputation' and revive our name amongst other nations of the world. Instead, we've only proven ourselves to be more willing to tolerate state manufactured and exported violence than anyone ever thought possible.
Afghanistan, Iraq, and all the other under-reported military adventures we have been pursuing and continue to pursue do not help us as a people or as a nation. We've been utterly and completed deluded into thinking that war can make things better.
Ten years into this so-called 'global war on terror' or, what others have named simply the 'long war,' the extraordinary misuse and the gross misdirection of natural, financial and human resources, perpetrated jointly by both Democrats and Republicans has been a shameful, pointless orgy of fraud, waste and abuse which has resulted not in making us safer or protecting our freedom, but quite the opposite.
October 6, 2011
