Record number of military suicides
The military is facing an epidemic of suicides. In the year that ended Sept. 30, 2009, 160 active duty soldiers took their own lives — a record for the Army. And this past June, another record was set — 32 military suicides in just one month. War is a meat grinder for service members and their families. It grinds people up without mercy, killing them and inflicting the worst kinds of wounds imaginable, physical and psychological. But after nearly a decade, neither war has been won and there is no prospect of winning.
Trillions of dollars are being squandered. George W. (“Mission Accomplished”) Bush took the unprecedented step of cutting taxes while waging the wars. We’re getting the worst of all worlds in Afghanistan: We’re not winning, and we’re not cutting our tragic losses. A tiny, tiny portion of the population is doing the fighting, and those troops are sent into the war zone for tour after tour, as if they’re attached to a nightmarish yo-yo. What we have in Afghanistan is a war that most Americans believe is not worth fighting — and certainly not worth raising taxes to pay for. It’s time to bring the curtain down for good on these tragic, farcical wars. The fantasy of democracy blossoming at the point of a gun in Iraq and spreading blithely throughout the Middle East has been obliterated. And it’s hard to believe that anyone buys the notion that the U.S. can install a successful society in the medieval madness of Afghanistan.
For those who haven’t noticed, we have a nation that needs rebuilding here at home. Thanks again, W, for your disastrous legacy.
Trillions of dollars are being squandered. George W. (“Mission Accomplished”) Bush took the unprecedented step of cutting taxes while waging the wars. We’re getting the worst of all worlds in Afghanistan: We’re not winning, and we’re not cutting our tragic losses. A tiny, tiny portion of the population is doing the fighting, and those troops are sent into the war zone for tour after tour, as if they’re attached to a nightmarish yo-yo. What we have in Afghanistan is a war that most Americans believe is not worth fighting — and certainly not worth raising taxes to pay for. It’s time to bring the curtain down for good on these tragic, farcical wars. The fantasy of democracy blossoming at the point of a gun in Iraq and spreading blithely throughout the Middle East has been obliterated. And it’s hard to believe that anyone buys the notion that the U.S. can install a successful society in the medieval madness of Afghanistan.
For those who haven’t noticed, we have a nation that needs rebuilding here at home. Thanks again, W, for your disastrous legacy.
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