Do You Know

Where Our Troops Are?

What was supposed to be a series, somehow became a static, or rather, a stunted realization: counting the days and weeks makes it all even more painful. So we’ll leave at that, with the few reasons we had in the beginning of 2011 to bring the U.S. troops home once and for all.  In the end, now more than ever, the American people have understood that we need them here, while most are still alive and ready to contribute in our own nation building. At the end of the year, those in Iraq will return. Let’s hope those in Afghanistan and everywhere else on earth are also on their way home. As John Lennon once said, war is over if you want it. And now, the majority really want it. Please feel free to come up with your own reasons why that is so.

1) 1448 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan as of 1/6/11.

2) Our troops are still in badly need for state of the art battle tolls, while American taxpayers have funded at least $3 billion in ill-conceived projects.

3) Suicide bombings became a way of life, even without the support of the general population. Eight innocent civilians died today and if anything, the tragedy just fuels anti-American sentiments.

4) Because Iraq and Afghanistan are the two countries with the most grievances against the U.S.,  and with all that’s happening in Egypt, it won’t be long before fingers will be pointed yet again to us.

5) More than 230,000 American women have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan so far and at least 120 have died doing so. But despite this fact, returning female veterans face unemployment, hunger, homelessness and physical and mental traumas sustained during their service.

6) 11 UN workers have just been killed in Afghanistan, two of them beheaded, and although blame should be place at the doorstep of that nut pastor in Florida, who burned some Korans but less than ten people pay attention to in the U.S. these days, such killings are still a terrible way to lose a child.

7) Taliban is still determine to revenge bin-Laden’s death and strikes over the weekend have killed four and injured at least 29 in ‘stable’ Herat, following the assassination of a police chief and a bombing that hurt a NATO.

8) An airstrike that killed 14 people — all women and children — and wounded six in the volatile southwest Helmand province, last week, despite being a NATO’s mistake, will be surely blamed on the U.S. and paid for with American lives.

9) Use of improvised explosive devices (IED) is causing a surge in double amputees among the troops, with injuries often so close to soldiers’ hips that it is difficult to fit prosthetic legs. Young men who lose their genitals in such explosions became severely depressed and unable to function within the context of relationship.

10) In the end, it may be the war’s price tag the determining factor to end the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. The $113 billion it’s spending this year, plus the $107 billion it aims to spend in 2012, may become the tipping point to turn the tide towards a complete troop withdrawal.