15 Reasons To Get Out Of Vietghanistan

15 REASONS TO GET OUT OF VIETGHANISTAN

David Swanson

1. The planning of 9-11 was done in hotels and apartments in Germany and
Spain, and flight schools in the United
States. Even Paul Pillar, former CIA deputy chief for counter-terrorism
will tell you that an al Qaeda base in
Afghanistan would not significantly increase threats to the United States.

2. If the Taliban had control of Afghanistan, it would likely not allow al
Qaeda in. Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.
president's guy in Afghanistan, will tell you the same.

3. The Taliban would not necessarily gain full control of Afghanistan if
the United States left. It never had it before, and
appears unlikely to be able to take it now. These three points, as Robert
Naiman has pointed out, make the leap from
US withdrawal to an al Qaeda attack on the United States quite a large one.

4. Occupying and bombing Afghanistan is actually making us less safe. It is
enraging people against the United States,
building the Taliban and other resistance.

5. The occupation is also damaging the rule of law. Our engagement in this
illegal enterprise makes it more difficult to
prevent other nations from engaging in wars of aggression.

6. The occupation is not benefiting the Afghan people. It is not protecting
their rights or their lives. It is brutally taking
their lives with bombs and imprisoning them without charge or trial or the
rights of prisoners of war.

7. The Taliban is made up of poor people fighting in order to eat. They
need aid, diplomacy, jobs, education, and
resources, not bombs and troops and mercenaries. We're paying tens of
thousands of Afghans to fight as mercenaries.
We could pay them to rebuild their country and have money to spare.

8. That we are supposedly succeeding against al Qaeda when arguments are
needed to reauthorize the PATRIOT
Act, but supposedly failing against al Qaeda when it's time to continue or
escalate wars is insulting, not credible.

9. The citizens of the United States oppose the war, and it's our money and
our kids, and our country being placed in
danger of blowback.

10. The people of Afghanistan, according to an ABC News poll, want the
United States to withdraw. It's their
country, and you cannot impose democracy on them without obeying their
majority opinion.

11. If we've been through eight years of this and not been able to even
devise a rough description of what a "success"
would look like, what are the chances that it will be identified and
achieved in year nine?

12. It's called the graveyard of empires for a reason.

13. Our states' militias, the national guard, are needed at home and cannot
constitutionally be sent abroad to fight for
empire.

14. US soldiers signed up to defend the United States, not to commit war
crimes in distant lands.

15. There is nothing worse than war that could conceivably take its place.
Killing people is the worst thing there is.

David Swanson is the author of the new book "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial
Presidency and Forming a More
Perfect Union"