1) After 11 years, we’re still not willing to win the war. We haven’t had the will to decisively win a war since WW II.
2) We have unclear objectives. We never should have sent troops to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Here are some of the excuses we used:
– The bad guys were in Afghanistan. (Probably as soon as we arrived, most of the Taliban leaders fled to Pakistan.)
– The bad guys were in Iraq; i.e., Bin Laden and Hussein were allies. There is still no indication that this was true.
– Iraq was violating U.N. sanctions. This is always a good excuse for war, but sometimes we act on it, and other times we don’t (the U.S.S.R.).
– Iraq was going to develop a nuclear bomb. There seems to have been no validity to this.
– Iraq had other weapons of mass destruction. This was never proven either.
3) We have now become the aggressors. The valid reason for going to war is when an aggressor attacks. Not only did neither of these countries attack us (although the terrorists initially lived in Afghanistan), we have now become the bad guys. We are the ones who started the Iraqi War. Iraq finally demanded that we leave, and now Afghanistan doesn’t want us there either.
4) When we’re not willing to win, and the war is too drawn out, our troops and our citizens become war weary. Not only have we now become the aggressors, but we have also now become terrorists. The soldier who murdered 16 Afghan civilians reminded me of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam in 1968. When our objectives are unclear, and we’re unwilling to win, everything becomes meaningless and we start acting irrationally.
5) Neither war has been worth it. 6,396 of our soldiers have been killed, and over 120,000 more have been injured (45,000 battlefield injuries plus 75,000 cases of Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other issues after returning home). Including coalition forces and civilians (mostly Iraqi), hundreds of thousands more have been killed, and still more Iraqi families have been displaced and they’ve had their lives turned upside down. In addition, these wars have cost trillions of dollars.
To put it another way: In order to avenge the deaths of 3,000 people killed on 9/11, we have been willing to sacrifice another 6,396 lives of our own people, and another 120,000 injuries. The negative impact of all of this has directly affected millions more of our own people (family and friends), not to mention millions more among our allies. Yet we have not been willing to decisively win either war, and we have not been effective in dismantling the Taliban.
If we insist on starting more wars (like maybe in Syria or Iran), we should make them air wars and not send any troops there. We should bring our soldiers home, teach a few of them how to fly bombers, and teach the rest of them how to make bombs. We should tolerate no more casualties from stepping on IEDs.