Why are we there?

Posted by parallel

 

Why are we in Afghanistan?  Come to that, why do we still have bases in Germany, Japan & S. Korea?

I sent this letter the Rep. Joe Sestak a couple of weeks ago and have not received a reply.

 

Dear Mr. Sestak,

 

I see several videos and reports of American forces killing civilians are now going the rounds.  The video and crew conversation of the helicopter gunships that shot the Reuters photographer and his driver cannot be spun by the administration, although they tried hard to suppress it.  Shooting the civilian van that tried to rescue the wounded man (and wounding two children inside it) clearly did not follow the rules of engagement.  See <a href="http://wikileaks.org/ "video</a>

 

Reported by Jerome Starkey of The Times of London, that U.S. military Special Forces killed two pregnant Afghan women and a girl in a February 2010 raid, in which two Afghan government officials were also killed.  It seems the troops dug their bullets out of the women they shot and reported the women had died of prior knife wounds.  The military first tried to lie their way out of it.

See href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7060395.ece "LondonTimes</a>

 

Wikileaks say they are about to release a video showing how scores of civilians were killed in a raid (possibly a hundred) and I'm reminded of the My Lai Massacre.   The point of course is that these things happen on a near-daily basis in war and there is no reason to trust the spin that the military will come up with in order to make it look like they did nothing wrong.

 

The war in Afghanistan is beyond a terrible pointless tragedy.  Why are we killing hundreds of civilians?  Even the military admit there are few al Qaeda left there.   Now it is mainly the general population fighting because they do not like being occupied by a foreign force.  What do you think those kids in the van the helicopters shot up will feel when they grow up?  We are breeding terrorists by our actions.

 

What are we doing in Afghanistan?  They are no threat to us.  There is no hope of turning the whole country into a democracy for the first time in its history, in any realistic timetable or at affordable cost.  We've been there nine years already.  I have asked you that question several times now and you always dodge it.  Just saying you disagree with me does not address the issue.

 

I understand that you are busy running for the Senate, but you are our representative and my question deserves an answer.  This is supposed to be a democracy but in practice the general population can have very little influence on what the government does.  

 

Sincerely

 

Adrian Ashfield