Why we are still here

Lately in the news we read about an Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who urged his followers to stop attacking US troops so they would leave. I was surprised to read this, not because it doesn't make sense, but because more insurgent leaders haven't preached the same thing.

As soon as President Barack Obama was inaugurated he started talking about a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. You would think our enemies would welcome this news. You would think they would stop fighting us so we would be able to withdraw quicker. You would think that the Taliban here in Afghanistan would be anxious for us to leave so they can take back control of the country. That's what you would think, but in reality, just the opposite has happened. The fighting has intensified.

Could it be that our enemies actually want us in the Middle East? I contend that they do, and for two very good reasons.

The first reason is money. Our two wars in the Middle East have poured billions of dollars into the respective country's economies. We have given the locals construction and cleaning jobs on our bases. We have purchased raw materials for our buildings, and infrastructure. We have allowed local merchants to sell their goods for ridiculous profits at the Bazaar's on our bases. We have purchased millions of dollars worth of locally made concrete barriers to protect soldiers and civilians from rocket attacks. Not to mention all the money that is being made by the arms dealers who sell the rockets.

Analysts have predicted that Afghanistan will fall into a deep recession once International occupying forces turn over security to the Afghans and leave. This of course, will further de-legitimize the fragile Afghan government and help launch the Taliban back into power. This may seem like an ideal situation for returning to power which all the loyal Taliban would support, but they too benefit financially by our presence and would suffer dramatically if we withdrew.

The second reason our enemies may want us to stay here is more sinister. The Sixth Pillar of Islam is Jihad. Killing infidels is an integral part of an extremist Islamist's faith. Jews and Americans are the worst of all infidels, and since Jews are already in the Middle East, they are an easy target. With hundreds of thousands of Americans now in the Middle East, it isn't hard for an extremist Muslim to wage Jihad on their most despised enemies. Also, it is easier now for our enemies to win over more people to their extreme viewpoint, despite our best efforts to win over their hearts and minds.

Perhaps the silver lining to this war is that by bringing the fight to our enemies, they haven't been able to or felt the need to bring the war to us. If being here in Afghanistan helps to prevent another 9/11, then I am happy to make this sacrifice for my family, my friends, and my country.

What every American should know about the Middle East

Gay rights advocates like to depict their behavior as normal, natural, affectionate, and loving, but in reality the opposite is true. Contrast their happy, healthy depiction with these examples of what is taking place all over the world.

Recently in Afghanistan, U.S. troops confiscated a cell phone from a young boy who was observing their operations. The boy deserted the area shortly thereafter and made his way home, unbeknownst to him, still under observation by Apache Helicopters. The pilots reported that this young boy met up with his father, who started to beat his son, and then proceeded to rape him. U.S. troops were called onto the scene and found that this was his father’s way of punishing his son for losing the cell phone.

If this type of behavior were isolated, it may be overlooked as a solitary abusive family relationship. The reality however, is that even in the so called ultra conservative middle-east, homosexual behavior is rampant. In their culture, women are so oppressed that the common phrase is “men are for pleasure, women are for babies.” The locals will tell you to keep your kids away from the man with his beard dyed red. This is a cultural symbol that means he likes little boys. Some Afghan and Iraqi military units have young teenage boys attached to their formations who are at the disposal of the men for their sexual pleasures. At Afghan and Iraqi military training camps, U.S. Cadre constantly discover men having sex together, and at other times their NCO counterparts rape their men as a form of punishment. You don’t believe me? Ask any Iraq or Afghanistan veteran, I’m sure they’ll have some stories to tell.

If this deviant sexual behavior were isolated to the middle-east, we might be able to blame it on their culture. Unfortunately, many third world countries experience the same issues. Even in the United States we are constantly hearing about boys being raped by their fathers, uncles, or brothers, and others being subjected to it by their teachers or mentors, or even being abducted from their homes and playgrounds.

These examples show how immoral, disgusting, unnatural, and deviant homosexuality is. Can there be any wonder that God specifically forbids this behavior in the Bible and why He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for the same? Being tolerant of this behavior in any form is destructive to our society and culture, not to mention the millions of young lives destroyed by this influence.

Policy or politics?

It is clear to most Americans that even before Barack Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009 that we were fighting a losing war in Afghanistan. I was in Afghanistan on that fateful day when we took down the picture of our old Commander in Chief and replaced it with a picture of Barack Obama. There weren’t any obvious differences in policy or practices when the Change of Command took place, in fact initially, everything in Afghanistan continued like business as usual.

Shortly after President Obama took office however, Military Commanders asked for more troops to support the war effort. The need for reinforcements was obvious. There were parts of the country where only a dozen or more soldiers held their ground on small isolated Combat Outposts (COPs). They would fight off the almost daily barrage of attacks from much larger groups of insurgents. In a couple of instances our soldiers lost their battles and had to retreat to larger FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) and surrender their hard fought real estate to the enemy.

After months of deliberation, President Obama relented to political pressure and announced a surge of 30,000 troops, with a prescheduled drawdown in the summer of 2011. In a true political manner, he tried to appease both sides. He committed only three quarters of the troops requested by General David McCrystal, and even worse, announced a withdrawal, further undermining the war effort. In the military we call an approach like this half-assed, and a half-assed approach rarely gets the job done.

As was expected, fatalities among American troops more than doubled during the summer of 2009, and continued to rise by much more in 2010. Not only were there more soldiers on the ground, conducting more operations, our enemies were emboldened and started conducting more complex attacks, emplacing more improvised explosive devices (IED’s), and setting up more ambushes. Their tactics and procedures started improving and evolving faster than we could keep up with.

Of course, the media turned a blind eye to the war in Afghanistan. Even though combat deaths increased five-fold between 2007 and 2010, there was little more than a peep from the media. We heard about deaths everyday on the network news stations when Bush was president. Most Americans would be surprised to learn how many troops are dying in support of Operation Enduring Freedom today, only because the media chooses not to report it.

Because of the increases in troops, FOB’s and COP’s started popping up everywhere. We littered the Afghan country side with American presence in every square kilometer of civilization. The larger bases increased in size considerably in order to provide more support for the outlying FOB’s. Since I have returned to the country in early 2011 I have been amazed at how much the American presence has grown.

As always, our military has made do with limited resources and has been successful. Despite combat deaths continuing to rise, the surge has actually been working, at least in the areas we control (there are still large areas of the country under Taliban and warlord control.) Taliban fighters have been denied freedom of maneuver, Afghan civilians have closer access to American forces, they are less easily intimidated, and insurgents have been rooted out of their traditional strong holds. There is still much more work to be done here, and a few thousand more troops would greatly help our success.

Recently President Obama announced that we will begin withdrawing American forces starting in September and all surge troops will be gone by the end of 2012, a move that General Petreaus and several other military leaders say was more aggressive their recommendations. The most important question now is why? Why would our president again commit fewer troops than military commanders require in waging the war? Why are we withdrawing troops when we have been successfully policing the Afghan countryside for the first time in ten years? Why did we gain all this real estate just to give it up again? Why did all those soldiers have to die if we aren’t going to hold onto their hard fought territory? Why did we do a surge in the first place if all our success is going to be reversed?

There is a false notion in Washington that the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police will be able to take over security in the country by the time we leave. Whoever buys into this nonsense is a fool. The Afghan army and police are very poorly trained, not loyal to their country, and are easily corrupted. As soon as we move out, the Taliban will move back in. They may be weaker now, but they will return stronger than ever.

Why are we giving the Taliban their strongholds back after we lost so much blood and treasure rooting them out? Is it so President Obama can win his next election? He is playing politics with the lives of American Soldiers, and it is an outrage. Why didn’t he just pull out of Afghanistan at the beginning of 2009? Why didn’t he commit all the troops the military commanders requested in order to be successful? It is because he lacks character, it is because he is unwilling to make the unpopular decisions, and instead he has pandered to both sides of the isle. In the end he may come out as the winner, but the American soldiers who have needlessly lost their lives are the unfortunate losers. At what expense will our President go to in order to be popular among the American people? Now we know.