USA SHOULD JOIN AFGHAN DESERTERS

Last Sunday’s edition of The Washington Post carried a devastating article noting that between January and June of this year 24,000 Afghan soldiers simply deserted their posts and returned home. This action is totally unacceptable and represents a total lack of discipline along with disrespect for the leadership within the ranks of the Afghanistan Army.

Adding insult to injury is the record of 1,912 American troops killed over the past ten years. In addition, 7,648 troops have been seriously injured in Afghanistan alone and they will suffer from those injuries for the rest of their lives. While Americans are dying daily, the local Afghan population is so divided that they cannot even form an effective functioning Army

Please take the time to read the attached Washington Post article, because it clearly establishes the core problems that prevent our intervention from accomplishing its mission.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/more-afghan-soldiers-deserting-the-army/2011/08/31/gIQABxFTvJ_print.html

Anyone who ever served in the military knows that sound firm discipline is the foundation of an effective military unit. When Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai authorized a policy that prohibits punishment of deserters, failure of the military mission was guaranteed. Over the past ten years our country has expended hundreds of millions of dollars to prop-up a corrupt political administration, and it is clearly past the time to get our brave troops out of hams way ASAP.

How can supposedly intelligent politicians in Washington ignore the long-standing history of Afghanistan tribal hostilities, the failure of the Russian government’s brutal intervention, and the past ten years of Afghan political corruption that supports the cultivation of drug producing crops?

President Obama should order that we eliminate all American involvement in Afghanistan immediately, and stop the bleeding of our troops and our scarce American dollars that support a MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. Experienced military Commanders know when there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and the future of this pest hole of the world is pitch-black into infinity.

Without American security the Karzai Administration may not last ten days. When one studies the historical documents of the Middle East tribal in-fighting, one must wonder just what those supposedly brilliant minds working in the State Department are smoking in their Foggy Bottom offices. It must be high-grade Afghan poppy derivatives that come back to Washington in diplomatic pouches.

COMMANDER GRANGER