Unfettered Letters

War in Afghanistan

I am concerned about President Obama’s decision to send more and more troops to Afghanistan. History has shown that Afghanistan is the “graveyard of empires.” Increased civilian deaths cause outrage, which leads to support of the insurgency, and will drive Taliban and al-Qaida fighters back to Pakistan. Expansion of the war to Pakistan weakens its fragile democratic government. Can we afford to escalate a war that is already costing $4 billion a month?

Finally, what happened to Obama’s pledge of the primacy of diplomacy over war?
 
Kris Cheatum
Kansas City

War hasn’t kept us safe

“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” means, “following this, therefore, because of this;” i.e., because one event follows another, the former must have caused the latter. Example: “My taking heavy doses of vitamin C is how I escaped colds this year.”

Many persons unknowingly invoke the above Latin phrase to explain ex-President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and his use of numerous questionable practices and policies as the reason for our avoiding another major attack. I am reminded of the rooster who thought his crowing caused the sun to rise until he overslept one morning.

Ford Thompson
Independence

Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan

I just watched a television special on the wars in Afghanistan and the tribal areas next door in Pakistan. The wars are not going well, to say the least. The situations look hopeless from a military point of view. A few extra U.S. troops are not going to turn the wars around.

NATO is not doing much, if any fighting. There is no strategy to win, and our too-few troops in Afghanistan are like sitting ducks in remote outposts, much like Vietnam.

Both countries have unpopular governments. We are losing the support of the local populations. The Taliban or insurgents and al-Qaida are talking about taking over neighboring Pakistan.

The big problem with a takeover in Pakistan is that Pakistan has nuclear weapons. It may be time for letters and phone calls to our representatives asking, “What are we doing there? What is the plan to secure the nukes?”

Clark Redick
Mission Hills

Setback in war in Afghanistan

Top NATO general, David McKiernan said military forces are needed to tamp down militants in Afghanistan (10/13, A-14, “Afghan war isn’t failing”). Restrictions keeping some NATO members out of the fight were harmful to the mission.

Last month McKiernan ordered more restricted rules of engagement for U.S. troops, risking their lives. Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered commanders to issue apologies and money quicker to Afghans claiming to have injuries or to having a relative killed by U.S. troops, before an investigation.

Victory in Afghanistan faced a setback when, for the first time I can find in U.S. history, Marines were thrown out of a war in 2007. One hundred and twenty Special Operations Marines were attacked and thrown out. A Court of Inquiry ruled they acted appropriately, and no criminal charges were warranted. Now generals ask for more troops.

Families sending their sons and daughters to war should know about the restricted rules of engagement, apologies and how Marines were thrown out of the war in 2007.

Marijane Green
Kansas City, Kan.

Sons may be off to Afghanistan

I have two Marine sons. Just think — the seventh anniversary of 9/11 is coming up. My sons were in eighth and 10th grade then.

Now they may be fighting in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. My older son just returned from Iraq tour, with two years in Okinawa before that. My younger son is deployed to Okinawa on a two-year tour now but got his Web orders to Camp Lejeune when that’s up on January 2009, and from there to Iraq (unless that’s changed for the Afghanistan surge).

If we have the same leaders and generals the entire seven years, without a shake-up like with getting Gen. Petraeus into Iraq, nothing will change. It will just mean more young troops in the Afghanistan “surge” with the same leadership, which hasn’t gotten the job done in seven years.

It’s scary for me, as a Marine mom, to send my active duty son into that, or to have my other son, who just got out after four years and is in the Individual Ready Reserve for three years, activated. They could possibly be in Afghanistan together, if there is a surge. And if the leadership is not changed, they could be under the same ineffective generals.

Marijane Green
Kansas City, Kan.

McCain wrong on Afghanistan

Sen. John McCain does his level best to tout his experience and subsequent understanding and insight into foreign affairs. However, in 2003, while speaking in front of the Council on Foreign Relations, Sen. McCain said he was more concerned with Iraq and that we could “muddle through in Afghanistan” without a large number of forces. That foresight was poor, and his judgment was disturbing.

The result of “muddling through” Afghanistan is a serious and deadly resurgence of the Taliban. Al-Qaida is growing stronger, and its leadership is still at large, plotting against our troops and home soil. Now our commanders are faced with growing violence and the serious need for more troops from an already stressed military.

With such inaccurate foresight and judgment, I question whether we should consider “muddling through” four years with John McCain.

Ken Strange
Kansas City

Social Security and war

Speaking about Social Security, John McCain says, the fact we are supporting present-day retirees with taxes paid by workers is “an absolute disgrace, and it’s got to be fixed” (7/10, A-2, “The Buzz”). This is a false argument by conservatives who blame social programs for the national debt.

Don’t senators ever read the Treasury reports on the deficits or the budgets they supposedly approve? For 2007, Social Security brought in $201 billion more than was spent, and there is a $2 trillion balance in the trust fund.

The problem is we have been spending the trust funds for hot and cold wars over the last quarter-century and are hemorrhaging red ink, as well as blood, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congress appropriated more than $800 billion this year for the Defense Department, not counting the half-dozen other agencies involved in war activities or the interest on our monumental war-incurred national debt. This situation has been exacerbated by tax cuts for other corporations, defense contractors, oil companies, and the wealthy.

Moreover, the Treasury has been pushing debt forward into the next fiscal year, and we don’t count military equipment and munitions as an expenditure.

Social Security doesn’t need fixing, war does.

G. Ross Stephens
Professor emeritus, political science and public administration, UMKC
Leawood

Magic wand won’t stop terror

Have we forgotten that on Sept. 11, 2001, this nation was attacked? And that those who attacked us have not been defeated?

America needs to fight these enemies wherever they exist. And they are currently in Iraq. They are still plotting ways to destroy us and our way of life. Fight them there or fight them here?

Should America have attacked Iraq? Hindsight has always been better than foresight. Have mistakes been made? A much bigger mistake is to not defeat your enemy. Is the war costly? Can we afford to lose?

America needs leaders who will have the courage to make the necessary commitments and provide the resources and patience to win this war. Any candidate who ignores or denies this is being dishonest or is in denial. Waving a magic wand of hope and change will not make the enemy disappear.

The economy, health care and other issues will be irrelevant without homeland security. The real question is not who answers the phone at 3 a.m. It is “Who will keep it from ringing?”

Thomas Hay
Lake Waukomis

Administration fails at peace

Administration failures

Can I believe my eyes? The Star reports President Bush is concerned that the election of a Democrat in November could harm our “peace and prosperity.”

Is the president now so totally removed from reality that he is unaware we are currently at war, with troops in the field, in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Does he now know his administration seems hell-bent on provoking another war with Iran?

Is he unable to understand the financial reports that demonstrate he has doubled our national debt during his administration?

Does he not know his administration has been responsible for lackluster job creation, a sub-prime mortgage crisis affecting homeowners nationwide, and an economy slipping into a recession?

Our nation will only have to suffer under his incompetent ignorance for less than a year now, but perhaps it is not too late to impeach this fool, remove him from office, and subject him to full punishment for the laws he has broken.

Robert Lewis
Independence

War on terror

Vladimir Lenin once said, “The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.” Look at what it has done to us: We have wire-tapped our citizens, barricaded our borders and impeded our travel if we have fingernail clippers, breast milk or a Bic. And who knew shoes were so deadly?

We have kidnapped uncharged persons and “renditioned” them to secret prisons for torture. We have failed others in Gitmo, calling them “enemy combatants,” which somehow magically strips them of the barest of human rights.

We waterboard, but it is not torture, because the administration says it’s not.

And none of this is our business because disclosing these facts “would endanger national security.”

All this in the name of “keeping America safe.”

Safe?

This is the land of the terrified.

If the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, it seems we are not winning the “war on terror.”

Joseph H. Moore
Kansas City

Iraq war not a game

As a KU alum, I’ve learned to simply ignore miscreants such as the Missouri judge who finds so much humor in the murder of 183 civilians by Quantrill’s raiders (11/18, A-1).
I was far more embarrassed by the quote attributed to fellow KU alum and former KU interim athletic director Drue Jennings (11/19, Sports Daily, “Border buzz: Celebrity picks”): “If we supported our troops and their mission in Iraq with the same intensity we support this rivalry, we would have won the war already.”
The war in Iraq (as well as Afghanistan) has not been prolonged by anything as superficial as “fan support.”
If I must incorporate Mr. Jennings’ sports metaphor, then the problem is that the coaching staff didn’t think their teams even needed a game plan or adequate equipment.
More than embarrassing me as a Jayhawk, Mr. Jennings’ words offend me as an American.
Such feeble attempts to impugn people who support the troops (and in my case, count relatives among them) but who would like to hold a lying president and his cabal of profiteers accountable are offensive.
Michael Webber
Prairie Village