I went to a lecture on Afghanistan yesterday. I left stunned.
This country is in absolute shambles. The Afghan Army is grossly under-funded. They don't have body armor, the right weapons, planes, the right vehicles, nothing. This is making it impossible for them to make any progress. The Taliban is paying much more to would be-soldiers than the Afghan army is, so Afghans are fighting for them rather than the AA. The Taliban is in control of 90% of the country's opium supply, which is basically their whole economy. All the "rebuilding of the Afghan infrastructure" you hear about, that's all a lie. The schools are fucking broken-down bombed-out buildings. The students have no school supplies and no playgrounds. The teachers earn 40 bucks a month, about the same earned by an Afghan soldier. American units are going out in armored Hummers, the Afghan units are undertaking missions in fucking PICKUP TRUCKS. The Afghan leaders say they need us there for another 10-15 years in order to finish the job. We have accomplished NOTHING in this country, after being there for 5 fucking years. The Taliban is alive and well. Invading Iraq was a huge mistake in and of itself, but the unknown grave consequence was taking the focus OFF Afghanistan WAY before the job was finished. If the 140,000 troops in Iraq were in Afghanistan, who knows what we could accomplish. This just pisses me off to such an extent because there's no solution I can think of. Where will the funds come from to fund this country, not to mention Iraq. Will the Afghan Army continue to be GROSSLY under-funded, making it impossible to accomplish anything? Not to mention the Afghan destroyed infrastructure and economy. Unbelievable.
Don't get me wrong, I love my country and I love the military. My friends brother and Dad actually just got back from the Afghan country. I also plan on enrolling in the military when I turn 17 but I guess I'll have to wait.
The war we as Americans fight everyday has been left out of Congress and hidden by the news. What about America's infrastructure? What about America's schools? What about our teachers? What about our economy?
Thousands of public schools are shut down and closed, leaving our teachers without any source of income. This is because of a lack of income and funding for America's children.
I agree that we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan and we sure the hell shouldn't have lost focus on it. But to be blatantly honest, we should of taken care of Osama when we had the chance when Bush Sr. was in office. If we would have killed him then we wouldn't be struggling to find another ruthless crazy leader in another hole. But hey, if we didn't do thing half ass, well that just wouldn't be the American way!