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‘President Barack Obama approved adding some 17,000 U.S. troops for the flagging war in Afghanistan, his first significant move to change the course of a conflict that his closest military advisers have warned the United States is not winning…
About 8,000 Marines are expected to go in first, followed by about 9,000 Army troops. Some 34,000 U.S. troops are already in Afghanistan.’
So reported by MSNBC on February 17th, 2009. The “war that dare not speak its name” is now officially Obama’s War. We are indeed, in a new era of change, hope, and possibilities. But as Karl Marx aptly points out, “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
Obama has inherited not just one, but two failed wars: Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq has been reduced from one of the most industrialized and advanced nations in the Middle East, to a country with an average of 3-4 hours of electricity available per day. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqi’s have been killed, injured or displaced.
Afghanistan has fared little better, but the cost there is little known to western audiences. They are, indeed, nightmares, for the soldiers stuck patrolling far away neighborhoods, for the families of those soldiers maimed and killed, and most importantly, for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster and is rightly opposed by a solid majority of the American public, not to mention the rest of the world. The Bush administration’s stated reasons for invasion and the toppling of its government has been exposed as a pack of lies. However, the reasons for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan are poorly understood and even more poorly opposed by our American antiwar movement.
Far from a simple crime of omission, the failure of our movement to stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan is a crippling weight, a restrictive chain, on the brewing, international movement against the neo-liberal nightmares of the past 30 years. To paraphrase a popular slogan, “What happens in the US antiwar movement, will not stay relegated to the US antiwar movement.” A strong, unapologetic stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan and against the US “Global War on Terror” would send a strong message to all movements across the world. To quote Mark Twain, it is our duty as citizens of the empire to oppose “having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Its time we broke through this paralysis so that we can chart a clear path to a world worth living in. Its time American’s woke up from this nightmare and expose the occupation of Afghanistan as one part of a broader war, against both Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
The following are 6 reasons to oppose the War in Afghanistan. It is the preface to a 6 part series where I will explain each point, in depth.
2. Far from liberated, women in Afghanistan are worse off than before the invasion.
Tags: Afghanistan, Antiwar, Iraq, movement, obama, Palestine, Rochester, war, War on Terror
11:07 am. Activism, Politics.
Your whole column here is unbelievable. First off, 9/11 was not a pretext to any kind of planned war. It was a cowardly, disgusting sneak attack, the likes of which has not been seen since Pearl Harbor. And women are not worse off now than they were before. For the first time, they are being schooled and given the tools necessary to lead a civilized and fulfilling life. Besides the fact that they are not to be killd any more in so called “honor killings” where the family kills their own daughter for defying Sahria Law. If that is not a step up from the way the women were living before, then nothing ever will be. And for your third point about us being the biggest source of violence, how can we be so violent when our troops are being attacked when they least expect it by spineless terrorists who either fire from long range with no concern to the civilians nearby or who set off remote explosives? Explosives, mind you, do not differentiate between friend and foe; they kill anything within their blast and fragmentation radius. So I do not see how we can be the “biggest source of violence and instability.” While you may have some degree of accuracy about the war costing the coalition forces money, how can you say that we should just pull out now? What would all those troops who laid down their lives, to fight to make sure assholes like you are safe and can speak their mind, no matter how twisted it is, have fought for? It also still remains fact that a nation who invades another should do what it can to help rebuild it to make a more stable country. What do you think the Marshall Plan was all about after World War II? It was to rebuild the countries of Western Europe and to give them a strgon foundation. Look at the Western European countries now. They are doing just as well as America. With this evidence, I don’t understand how you can disagree with rebuilding a failed nation. It made allies for us in the past, and it may very well do so again in the future. I would also like to know, by the way, where you get all of your information from. I find it hard to believe that some of it came from any sort of reputable website with actual facts and not inflated statistics.
If you study the history of US intervention in the Middle East, it was bound to happen that the United States be attacked for its role in the destruction of Afghanistan along with Russia in the 1980s. With American military bases in countries like Saudi Arabia and killer sanctions on Iraq in the 90s, it boggles the mind how anyone would think that retaliation was not in the future.
Then you have to ask why we’re in the Middle East. Of course not to spread democracy and go on a feminist mission to save women. It’s been to control the spigot of oil. Not for US consumption because our oil mainly comes from the Western hemisphere but to control who gets what and at what price. It is lucrative because of the multitude of countries that depend on the oil from that region.
9/11 became a pre-text to war because it gave the United States ruling class an excuse to launch a full invasion and an attempt to private or control the flow of oil in the Middle East. That’s been the goal the last 50 years, and sadly the attacks on 9/11 was the perfect shock needed to carry out a full on war that over 90% of congress voted yes on.
Afghan women were once prosperous before Soviet and US invasion. To think that the US has any interest in bettering the lives of people is ridiculous. Just look at what has happened to people in this country in the midst of an economic crisis. Statistics show that the more troops on the ground the more the violence increases. Afghan women are better off without a foreign occupation.
We need to stop allowing troops to be killed so the people at the top can continue to rake in the profits. Our troops should be back home, cared for by a fully funded VA and with all the benefits to go to school rather than risk their lives for the interest of a few. If we had not meddled in foreign countries there would be no ridiculous attacks like the one on 9/11. We should withdraw immediately and provide help and resources for Afghans to rebuild their own country because they are totally capable of running society in their own interests.
I don’t see how their lives were better before we invaded. They were killed by stoning, where they were buried up to their necks and only their head was peaking out of the ground while others on the outside threw stones at a defenseless head. Do you mean to tell me that the women were better off then than they are now? How about the fact that men can go off and galavant, but women are expected to wait until marriage, and if they don’t they can be killed under Sharia Law? The US is trying to change that and bring a fair and equal justice system to the region. How can you sit there and say that the women are better off now than before?
And how can you say that we are not at all worried about improving the lives of the people over there? We are giving them supplies each day to make their lives better. They receive things like short-wave radios to listen to radio programs. I, as an American Soldier, take serious offense to that, saying that I will be over there shortly just to fight and that a big part of our mission will not be to care for the people. Our job is to eliminate the terrorists and to win the hearts and minds of the people to advocate support from the Afghan population. To not care for the people would be to lose all support for the war from our own country and from theirs. In poll published in TIME Magazine, 63% of Afghan people said that they supported our efforts. That would be the majority of the country, and I do not believe that the majority of the country would put support behind the troops of a foreign country who is currently an occupation force if the foreign forces were not showing some sign of care for the native population.
I would also like to address your point about controlling oil. I don’t see how you can say that. It was clear that Osama bin Laden had planned his attacks from and was training more terrorists in Afghanistan. That is why 90% of Congress voted yes to invading the country. It’s njot about controlling oil. If anything, oil may have had more to do with Iraq than Afghanistan.
Finally, I don’t understand how you can say that we should be out of Afghanistan immediately. Would you rather be fighting the war from within our own borders against sleeper cells who had the ability to strike anywhere anytime in the US? Would you rather have a repeat of 9/11 or possibly something worse? This troop surge is what we need in the country right now. We are losing ground and need to go in there and kill as many of the Taliban forces as is possible to win Southen Afghanistan. That is how to win the war. Beyond that, all we need is patrolling forces to deal with pockets of resistance and then to bring the soldiers home. The only way to deal with a culture who believes in killing its citizens for minor infractions of the law cannot be dealt with easily. You must fight fire with fire and crush the opposing forces and crush their will to fight. Only then will we have won the war and only then will our country have some sort of relative safety for some time.
In response to Mr.Mulvihill’s comments, can I just say that they are indicitive of an ‘American Patriot’ who cannot see the wood for the trees. The usual diatribe of the ‘we are the good guys’ and they (the rest of the world) are the bad guys. Can Mr. Mulvihill answer me how the ‘bad guys’ (terrorists, or anyone who doesn’t agree with America) set of their insidious roadside bombs from a distance, yet when American bombs fall in residential areas and wedding parties causing multiple innocent casualties (sorry, ‘collateral damage, to quote the jargon)and have the audacity to try and hold the moral high ground by thinking that any deaths other than an American Citizen are justified. Throughout history this ‘us and them syndrome’ has been responsible for more deaths than anything else. It seems to me that he has become what the politicians love, ‘a succour for their propaganda’, believing that they are the good in the world, while everyone else is evil, and intent on destroying ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.Does Mr. Mulvihill feel strongly enough to back up his couragous rhetoric by going out and fighting the battles he portrays on a personal level, or is he happy enough to sit back and let all the poor guys do his fighting for him as he sits in the comfort of his home watching sound bites of the war (not reality)but yet know all the answers to what is happening in a country so far removed from his comfort zone that he wouldn’t know what hit him if he ventured as far as another country and experienced it first hand.With regard to 9/11 being a pretext to war in Afghanastan I have to say you have got that wrong as well Mr. Mulvihill. Your esteemed President at the time, George W, had on his desk on the day before 9/11, a war plan to invade Afghanistan, so how convenient that America should come under attack the next day, they picked the pre planned operation of the shelf, that’s why they were able to go into Afghanastan so quickly, so the attacks of 9/11 just happened to be a very handy reason to attack a country which had nothing to do with said attacks, and then move onto the next country on their list, Iraq, which again had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and between those two illegal wars America has killed, injured, maimed and displaced countless thousands of innocent civilians ( but thats what happens when your not born on the right side of the track, isn’t it Mr. Mulvihill)they become ‘collateral damage’, why can America not say that they accidently killed innocent people instead of using those two insidious words, the people who have died are every bit as dead as the poor people whio died on 9/11, no more, no less human than the next person. I do not hold a grudge against you personally Mr. Mulvihill but I do take exception at you marginilising the rest of the world as some sort of sub species who do not have the right to exsist on this small planet because we come from a different part of the world or because our skin is of a different colour, everybody has the right to live in peace and I would like you to enjoy the rest of your life in peace Mr. Mulvihill and try not to pre judge a different culture and put it down without first trying to at least understand it.
Well said, Mr. Hopley.
Biased as fuck. Get a god dam life.
A lot of thought went into that Bob, thanks for covering all that ground so eloquently.
gary looks to have more love than mr.mulville.listen to malalai joya.listen to mumia abu jamal..getting some global perspective and learning some u.s.foreign policy history may help you find love
You are rigt, I am an American Patriot. I love my country. That’s exactly why I just signed my name to an 8 year contract with the United States Army. I’m an 18 year old soldier who is more proud of what I’m doing than anyone can imagine. Putting o the uniform is one of the greatest honors I can imagine. So, yes, when I’m graduated from college in 2013, I will be out of my comfort zone fighting in a foreign country, whether that is Afghanistan or Iraq, or wherever the current hot spot may be. And I d honestly believe that we re the good guys in this war.
I do not understand how you can see us as the evil ones. We were attacked by terrorists. It was a sneak attack, though there were many points at which we could have stopped it if we werent so naive as to believe that we could never be atacked on our own soil. It was ust as much of a sneak attack as Pearl Harbor, yet we aren’t seen as the evil ones there. In Pearl Harbor it was at attack on a military base, but the World Trade Centers were civilian targets. Is it not evil to attack and kill civilians and provoke a war?
As fo the civilian deaths in Afghanistan, they are all tragic. Civilians should not have to pay the cost of war, but nobody ever said war is glorious or great. War, itself, is tragic, so more tragedies are bound to come of it. In the same breath, civilian casualties are inevitable, especially when we are currently fighting a non-uniformed enemy who dresses in civilian clothing and fights using guerilla tactics from within crowds. We never intentionallyrop bombs to kill civilians. But it happens, because wars are fought by humans, intelligence is collected by humans, and battle plans are made by humans, who are not perfect. Things can aways go wrong, and the media only portrays the mistakes and the death tolls. And that does not make an argument for IED’s. They are not only used on Coalition Forces, but they are also used on civilians in marketplaces, etc. So many civilian deaths are also caused by the insurgents, whi indiscriminantly kill using IED’s. That cannot be blamed on the Unites States or anyone who is currently fighting the terrorists.
We were also able to deploy so quickly because the United States Army is in a constant state of combat readiness. Especialy special forces, who were the first to be deployed. Mobilization of forces, especially after an attack like that, isn’t a long process because the army is aways training to be eady to deploy anywhere in the world. Special forces are ready to deploy within hours with necessary equipment, and the rest of the military within days to a few weeks. That’s why the Reserve Corps trains one weekend a month and 2 weeks a year, and the Actrive Duty soldiers train daily.
I do not believe that the rest ofthe world is sub-human. As a Christian, I do believe that evryone has the right to live. But the radicals have brought this upon themselves. They took the right to life from innocent civilians when they attacked the Twin Towers in NYC. They should pay the consequences for their actions. It comes to people like me, and veryone else who has signed their name to the military, who are willing to stand up against those who commit wrongs to our great country, and are willing to die for what we blieve in. I will proudly stand next to my fellow soldiers and command them to the best of my ability as an officer and die with them if that is what it takes to bring America some sense of safety.
And I do wish to understand the Islamic culture and religio more. That’s why, as a political science major, I have made mostof my corseload heavy with Islamic courses. I am leraning more about the religion,cuture, and politics of the region.
I challenge you to try and see it from another perspective. I am not saying that all of your points aren’t valid. I agree that there are certainly downfalls to the battle plan. Nothing is perfect, but justice must be done for thsoe who have wrongly died, especially in Afghanistan, where it is known that al-Qaeda had training camps.
The soldiers don’t ask a lot of you, but just to show some support. All of us inuniform know that some of yo may not support the war, but pleae show s sopport. We are over there fighting so that America doesn’t have to live in fear of another attack. We simply ask that you show us support, because we are fighting so that you can protest uus, even call us “baby killers” and so on. We fight to keep you safe and for the liberties that the Ameican Constitution allows all of us.
I have lived with and supported two Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans for over two years.
Both were getting absolutely screwed over by the VA health system.
Both served and were convinced that despite the best intentions of their fellow soldiers, the mission they were sent on had nothing to do with terrorism or helping the people of Afghanistan or Iraq, but to secure access to vital resources or prevent other countries from getting access to them like Russia, China and Iran.
Most of the 9/11 attackers came from Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan. Bin Laden did most of his training in Afghanistan while he was on the payroll of the US, not after.
The latest suspect in the Mumbai, India terrorist attack plotted from Chicago and used the US as his “safe haven.” Does India now have the right to invade and occupy the US?
Most western newspapers reported in the lead up to October, 2001, that the Taliban was willing to deliver Bin Laden to the US, at first with conditions, then they even dropped those as it became clear the US was going to invade.
Bush ignored these offers and is on record as wanting to “teach those fuckers a lesson.” I don’t believe our troops should be used as pawns in the geopolitical games of our rich leaders, democrat or republican.
and by the way, the only person who I ever heard call a soldier a “baby killer” was a right winger who was denigrating my veteran friend for opposing both wars.
The reality is that we, the antiwar movement, don’t make our support of soldiers contingent on whether they support the war or not, we want them ALL to come home immediately.
The phrase “War on Terror” is rubbish to be quite honest. What do you define Terrorism as? It was not invented on 9/11, for your information. Gary well stated about ‘collateral damage,’ as well as the Us and Them mentality.
If you think that the US are absolutely the good guys and above reproach then I suggest you look in the history books Mulvhill. Panama 1989 “Operation Just Cause.” Over 15,000 civilians were displaced and estimates range around 3,000 civilian casualties mainly due to bombing. All this to overthrow a dictator, which America seems to feel is their duty to the world. To show the world how people are supposed to behave and act.
I agree that there are human rights violations in Afghanistan but is that a credible cause or justification to invade, I think not. Alot of those issues are cultural and as our world becomes further pluralized and information as well as communication is more readily accessible things will start to change. I agree that change needs to happen but militarily is not the answer. There are a plethora of NGO’s and other Human Right’s groups like Amnesty International etc, that deal exclusively with these issues.
However I have to agree with the Admin that I would endorse leaving. This quite frankly is an unwinnable war. The NATO and American forces are foreign and we have the option to turn back, while they don’t they are at home defending themselves, they can’t give up. Western armies fight overseas, they have the option to return home while the other does not because they live there. It is not winnable because they aren’t fighting Afghans or even the Taliban, they are caught in a civil war between two factions that are vying for political power and dominance, which the United State took from the Taliban(a political group). The Taliban are made up of Pashtun, and the U.S invasion drove the Pashtun from government. The Taliban is fighting for control of political power that they once held, which the US gave to their rival ethnic group. The difference between them being the Shia and the Sunni sects of Islam.
Anyways I enjoyed everyone’s comments and I think it is good to contemplate whether this is a just war or not and whether or not to stay it is important that the people be informed.
We are a warring nation. What country spends even close to the amount we spend to supposedly protect its citizenry against foreign enemies?
The irony behind all of our war making is that other industrialized nations are spending their budgets on their own infrastructures, education and technology while they internally laugh at our nation as it sinks desparately into dept in the attempt to kill an enemy that can not be destroyed with bullets.
We should immediately pull out of Iraq and Afghanastan. We should stop dropping our bombs on innocent people and quit sending our young & poor innocent teenagers to die for the wealthy industrial giants who only have one motive, (greater profits).
We should all stop our patriotizing lectures and begin to try and understand the reality of war and its perpetuating forces, and to begin to realize that guns and bullets can create more problems then they ever pretend to solve.
Mr. Mulvihill, or may I call you Matthew. You put your case across with a lot of conviction and pride which you should be justifiably proud of, but unfortunately you as a christian should know that it is wrong to take another human beings life to avenge their wrongdoing no matter what they have done, by your own admission should judgement not be left to your god to punish the wrong doers or has it got to the stage that man has become his own god in god’s image. I personally am an athiest and I have never felt the urge to go out and take another human life for any reason yet it seems to me that self rightgeous people who feel they have a score to settle can go and inflict injury, harm and death to another people who are totally innocent of the crimes committed by another ‘faction’ and say thast it is justified in the eyes of your god, whatever happened to the passages from your bible that say for instance, turning the other cheek or the ultimate one in your commandments, ‘thou shalt not kill’,or that ‘he who is without sin, cast the first stone’ to name but a few, and i am not even religious but I can see the sense in these sayings. It seems to me that a lot of the wars that are started are usually in the name of religion and America and its neo-conservitave right wing are only too happy to use these events to further alienate people from other cultures and religions to further their agenda of weilding power in the rest of the world, but I have noticed that where they usually weild that power is in countries where there is normally oil and gas reserves.
Another thing I might add here is that you mentioned Pearl Harbour as well being a suprise attack, again Matthew can I just say if you look a bit deeper you will find that it was another classic ‘black flag operation’ carried out by your own government as an excuse for America to enter the second world war so that the ‘Military Industrial Complex’ that IS America could reap huge profits again at the expense of innocent human beings, with the likes of Prescott Bush, George seniors dad and George W’ grandaddy supplying pig iron to the nazi’s and he was tried under the enemy of the staes act but managed to wriggle his way out of that one, so much for being a patriot there when you are selling munitions to your enemy ehh!!!
One thing I will say Matthew is that you are still at an age (and I don’t mean this in a patronising way) but I am 50 now, I have heard all the rhetoric and lies that are continually perpetuated by our politicians and you are still young enough to be sucked in by this overwhelming patriotic fervor that they espouse and feel that you are doing right by joining the military. But I will nearl guarantee you that by the time you reach my age ( and ask a few vets who have served in Iraq, Afghanastan and Veitnam) you will hopefully, if you survive the war you are sent to, start to see that your very own government do not really care for you one bit once you have served their purpose and I know you will find that last statement hard to believe but it’s a little thing that comes with maturity and age, its called wisdomand I hope that you find this wisdom as you progress with your life because the last person I wish to see dead is you Matthew and especially if it’s for someone else’s gain.
I really do wish you a happy and fruitful life Matthew but if you could do me and yourself one favour, please to not take another human life for any reason if you can help it and I guarantee you it will feel so much better than waking up one day realising that you cannot turn back the clock and you have something so terrible on your consience as taking that life. Peace to you my friend and I hope that you do whats in your heart and not your head for the rest of your life.
Mr. Hopely, I would like to thank you for your kind words and wishes. I know they were written with my best interest at heart, but I cannot say that I will adhere to them.
The job I signed up for is to go and fight any person or group that America designates as an enemy. I took an oath to fight “all enemies foreign or domestic” when I signed my contract. Fighting means engaging these enemies in combat. Lives are taken in combat.
It goes even further than that though. I joined out of love for country and admittedly out of vengance, too, in some ways. I live in New York, about an hour or so away from New York City and my father is a NYC fireman. My family lost friends in the attacks and I certainly want to take some vengance on the group who coordinated the attacks and their associates.
But as of no, I train to fight out of love for country. When I leave, I will go to a foreign land and take the time away from my family anf friends and life back home out of love for country. But when I get to wherever I will be deployed, I will fight for the men beside me, not my country.
I know these same men will fight for me, too and that we will do anything in our power to save one another, even making the untimate sacrifice of giving our own lives to ensure that someone else can make it home alive to see their families once again. I will also do what is necessary to preserve my own life. This may include the taking of a human life. I am prepared and willing to do that. It will not weigh on my conscience in any way.
Being Catholic and since my home school district has been in a downhill slide for a few years now, I went to the local Catholic high school in the next town over. It was there that I was taught that it is okay to take the life of another in the defense of yourself or those who cannot or will not defend themselves.
The war in Afghanistan, and the battle against as-Qaeda and their affiliates is in the defense of our country and our fellow countrymen. Therefore, killing enemy combatants in battle when it is agaisnt terrorism is just according to my beliefs as a Christian.
And as for your piece about the Bible, you are correct about the passages in the New Testament about peace and doing what you can to make it. But if you look in the Old Testament, God backed the Israelites in their campaign against those dwelling in their Promised Land in order for them to control it. He even allowed them to place the Arc of the Covenant in front of the military to be used as a rally point and their “secret weapon.” God is not toally against war if it is for just reasons, as I have come to use my best reasoning with my beliefs in mind to come to a conclusuon to.
Thou shalt not commit murder Mr. Hopley. Not thou shalt not kill. King David was, “A man after God’s own heart,”Acts 13:22 but was yet a warrior. If you saw a woman walking alone in a park after dark past a man who you knew was a convicted rapist, and the man began to follow her would you for the sake of an ideal,(not making rash assumptions of what the man may or may not do) stand by and hope that she does not get raped or try to help her even if it meant harming, or perhaps killing the rapist to do so?
Wow.
I have come to this topic in class discussions many times, my opinion does not change. I feel, very strongly may I add, that we should not be in this war because not only is it tearing the other countries apart, but it is tearing ourselves apart.
The government has spent close to a TRILLION dollars since the wars began in 2001. What do you see us gaining out of it? Finding or even partially eliminating al Qaeda? How do we know for sure that they are in the middle east?
Perhaps they are smarter than we think and are just some where else. Everyone I have asked says that we don’t know for sure. And personally, I think that it is dumb to spend resources while stabbing in the dark, even if there is a small, dim light. Our economy is spiraling downward, and this war is turning into a black hole for money. Our housing crisis is growing deeper, more homes foreclosing, forcing innocent families who probably haven’t done ANYTHING to deserve it. If we were to pull out of the war, then we could use some of the resources to provide relief.
The education budget is just being torn to shreds by the government. Heaven forbid us to take money–even if it is just a little bit–from the war. But noo we have to take it out of the kids’ education. “The children are our future” is a popular saying. The future needs to be educated, so that stupid decisions won’t be made. And I think that getting involved in this war was too big of a decision to decide quickly. The 9/11 attacks were horrible, traumatizing even. However, out of everyone’s rage, they didn’t seem to look at the consequences this battle could bring us. Casualties, economics, and international tensions increasing.
I feel that if we pull out, we could better use the resources on our country. Once we have repaired ourselves to everyone’s liking, then maybe we could re-invade, and seek out al Qaeda.
Even if we didn’t go into it, I think that we wouldn’t be in bad as shape as we are now. Being as that is not true, we shouldn’t dwell on that.
A re-invasion would cost even more money, because we would have to take back what we’ve already gained. And I’m not sure who you’ve been asking but I have friends who have been to Afghanistan and they said we’ve eliminated hundreds of al Qaeda members. What we can’t find is Bin laden. Your absolutely right wars cost tons of money. But in cases like these I believe it was necessary. As for education I think they need to allocate the money more wisely. The U.S. spends more money on education than any country in the world, and yet last I heard we were only 14th in the rankings amongst other nations.
I agree that we need to do more about education. Our biggest thing, though, is the Teachers’ Union. They hold far too much power. I went to a Catholic school that had to fight liek crazy to not have the teachers walk out. There was one day that we went to school and only has homeroom, thewn we went home because so many trachers were in the teacher’s union and there weren’t enough teachers to run the school.
So before you get on the war is too much kind of bandwagon, you should look at the special interest groups who have the senators and house members in their back pockets. There is far too much power in their hands. For exaample, it takes years to fire teachers, who sit in “rubber rooms” and sit there reading the paper while gettin paid in full to do so. That ,to me, is a very wrong and corrupt system.
And as for the war, building nations costs a lot of money. It was far more than anyone expected and the economic downturn can somewhat be blamed on that. Proper planning by Whitehouse officials coukd ave possibly stemmed the tide of money spending that we have been so willing to do. The sub-prime mortgages were much to blame and had the banks and Senate not been so obliged to spend like they did, maybe the current state of affairs may no have happened. It was regulation that needed happen, not a completely free narket, where banks could loan to whoever they wat, as much as they want. Americans were living beyond their means, and t he defaulting lonas were very much to blame, laong with banks, for the economic crisis we’re in now.