Rethink Afghanistan

Yesterday, after I found out that we had a day off of baseball I took a quick trip to the library to renew my library card. I found three movies, Taxi to the Dark Side, Rethink Afghanistan, and Gunner Palace. I made myself a huge bag of popcorn and watched all of them. Taxi to the Dark Side was probably the most moving in the fact that it showed dramatic images of how prisoners were tortured to get information. The worst part about the detention system is that when a raid happens and the coalition forces do not find evidence of any terrorism they still detain the suspect. It goes against everything that America stands for. They are considered guilty until proven Innocent. George W. Bush specifically declared terrorists as not apart of the Geneva convention. That means that if a person is suspected to be a terrorist then they do not have any war time rights and the US forces can do what they want with them. That is absolutely horrible. Also, when these people who are not found guilty in raids get sent to detention camps they are tortured and harassed for information. They could not have anything to give. There is no trial for them to know why they are there. The system is completely flawed. The next movie, Gunner Palace, was a documentary about a division who were stationed at a bombed out palace. The camera followed them everywhere and captured their daily raids and even the multiple IED attacks. This division was attacked by an IED an impressive 18 times. All the soldiers said that they were not scared of firefights but were horrified of IED's. IED's can be hidden in trash and turned over cars, the problem is that the entire nation is covered in trash and rubble. The soldiers have to just cringe and wait in anticipation as they drive past cardboard boxes and piles of trash. The amazing part about the documentary was the lack of support by the citizens. Whenever US troops show up on the scene of a terrorist bombing the citizens are more mad that the Americans are there than a bomb killed their friends. It is a very tough war to fight. There is no conventional enemy. The last movie Rethink Afghanistan really put everything together for me. This movie was a documentary about how the war was started, how we screwed up and the damage we have done, and how we can fix everything. There were a lot of interviews with citizens and personal stories of the 40% of people without jobs. The affect of the war is a lot more widespread than the death and casualty counts. There are over 250,000 people without homes because of American air strikes. All of these people do not have jobs and starve because their crop fields have been blown up. With all of this destruction and devastation the Afghan people look to the ones who are doing the most damage to blame, and that is the US forces. The majority of the Taliban forces are comprised of people who have suffered from their friends or family being injured or killed by coalition forces. The rest are just there to fight so that they can put food on the table for their family. The Taliban is the only form of steady money available to the citizens. They offer $8 a day just to fight with them. Also, a big misconception is that the Taliban is connected with Al-Qeada. That is completely false. Al-Qeada is no where in Afghanistan and American generals know that. The Taliban is not an international threat at all either. Their goal is to take control over the villages and to stop foreign forces from invading their land. The war should no longer be fought with weapons but with trust. We need to gain the trust of the Afghan people by giving them jobs and helping them instead of destroying them. There is a program that supports the Afghans and gives them some money to work on infrastructure. This program is very similar to the New Deal. The citizens are paid to help improve the infrastructure of Afghanistan while putting money into the economy. If the yearly budget of 40 billion dollars in Afghanistan to fight the war was used to get the Afghans jobs and build infrastructure then well over half of the unemployed could have jobs for over ten years. That is how we can win this war. Conventional strategies have proven unsuccessful with the Soviet invasion and the British invasion and now the American invasion. Can we not learn from history? These people do not want a foreign power in their country at all even if it is for a good cause.

Collateral Damage

No mater how noble the war is whether it is World War II fighting the Germans or fighting for oil, as some may think, in the Middle East, all wars will have collateral damage. The only difference is that today the media has easy access to the public through the Internet and can publish hundreds of gruesome pictures that are too gory for newspapers. That is why as American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan increases the public opinion about the war turns more negative. No one wants to see innocent civilians being killed, but the fact of the matter is that that is war. When the enemy is using the civilians as a cover and doesn't wear a clear uniform to identify themselves it is very hard to determine friend from foe. Does that mean that killing innocent civilians is okay, hell no. However, there needs to be some leniency for the troops overseas because of the haze of war. For example, when a road block is set up and a car does not stop after warning shots it seems clear that they are enemies right? Not always the case. Marine divisions have reportedly killed Innocent unarmed civilians as they tried to keep going through the road block not stopping at the warning shots. It is all about the haze of war. The civilians should have turned away after the warning shots and since they did not then the Marines had to stop the truck because it could easily be filled with explosives. These improvised explosions have increased dramatically over the years. I have found a website that shows the actual reported IED attacks and there have been an incredible amount of attacks that hit coalition troops daily. Living with IED's is a daily threat and is the number one killer of troops. That is why when American forces see a car that is coming towards a road block and doesn't stop they get a little nervous. They know friends that have died and have heard stories of cars driving within a few hundred feet of a convoy and detonating hundreds of pounds of explosives. The war is not black and white anymore. I believe that civilian deaths should be monitored and watched to make sure it doesn't get too high but eliminating all civilian casualties is impossible.

War Crimes

At first when I wanted to research the war in Afghanistan I realized that the situation there is so complex that it would take months to research the history and the current situation we are facing let alone create an opinion. Then I encountered a great article about the war crimes being commited in Afghanistan. The Rolling Stones have published pictures of the brutal war crimes that the pentagon tried to cencor. There is a warning before you see the pictures and do not take the warning lightly. These pictures are very gruesome. However, Rolling Stones and I believe that America should know what is happening overseas and what type of image the Afghan people are getting of American people. At first I believed that certain war crimes like accidentally shooting an unarmed civilian that gets too close to the platton should be adressed and lightly penalized. This is because of the haze of war. In the Middle East soldiers are scared to death every time they get on a road because of road side bombs and IED's. These Improvised Explosive Devices can be triggered from miles away where the Taliban can film the attack. There is very little that the US forces can do about it and that is extremely frustrating. That is why I believe that a little anger is okay when it comes down to accidentally killing civilians that come too close because you never know if they have a bomb straped to them. However, after seeing the pictures and hearing what the 3rd platoon has done it has really upset me and has changed my opinion about being leanient.