Death toll, weak economy reason for withdrawal
“The most important failure was one of imagination.”
This sentence is taken directly from the 9/11 Commission Report’s Executive Summary. It describes why our nation was unable to prevent the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Simply put, America’s leadership could not comprehend the idea of an attack this great and this violent taking place on our own soil.
Now, more than a decade after that horrible day, the American people are suffering from yet another failure of imagination — or, more directly, of realization. The War in Afghanistan, now the longest conflict in U.S. history, still somehow manages to continue without the national attention that it deserves.
The absence of pervasive public outcry is most likely due to our continued attachment to our “war on terror.” The Sept. 11 attacks are an ineffaceable scar on our history. These attacks must be mourned and remembered, but they cannot continue to drive us down a path of endless, wasteful war.
The total number of coalition deaths in Afghanistan stands at around 2,854 military casualties, with almost 2,000 of that number being American soldiers. After 10 years of fighting a “war on terror,” we have come close to losing as many lives as were taken in the 9/11 attacks. With a withdrawal date shakily set for 2014, it is highly possible that we will equal or go beyond the 9/11 death toll.
What have we or the Afghans gained from the price of our soldiers’ lives? The Afghan government and economy are funded almost exclusively by foreign aid to the tune of more than 90 percent of the country’s revenue. Tribal differences make administrative centralization look like a daydream. Attacks by insurgents in the heart of Kabul last week have laid serious doubts on the capabilities of American-trained Afghan security forces — the same forces that will be taking over national security in just two years.
After 10 years, Americans still live under the shadow of terrorism, but it is a terrorism stemming from the inefficient and irresponsible decisions of leaders who allow this conflict to continue. The victims are now the mothers on their lunch breaks, crying over their coffees because they haven’t heard from their sons in more than a week; they are the fathers buying empty coffins for daughters who, because of an insurgent’s bomb, have no bodies to recover.
In our political discourse, we jump at the chance to profess our patriotic loyalty and support for our country’s warriors, yet fall silent when it comes to ending the reason for their struggles. It is time we demanded in a clear voice, the end to a conflict that, rather than ending terror abroad, perpetuates it in countless American families.
We cannot continue to sacrifice Americans lives in a situation that, through the years, has become unsupportable. We must open our eyes; we must imagine the chaos into which we continue to throw the courageous among us. We must realize that enough is enough.
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