American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.
Many feel that they are risking their lives ”” and that colleagues have died ”” for a futile mission and an Afghan population that does nothing to help them, the chaplains told The Times in their makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest of Kabul.
“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.
This is a sobering article that I think rightly assesses the current moral in Afghanistan and the limbo state of the war. Obama consistently criticized the Bush admin. for “dropping the ball” in the war. He certainly has not picked the ball up and I don’t think he even cares about it. He is to busy socializing our country and is probably waiting for the opportune time to pull out and give it up to the Taliban.
In this article the part that struck me most forcefully was the feeling that the Afghan people did nothing to help the troops. That would be truly dispiriting. The difference between the Russians and the US-led coalition is that the former were an army of occupation, the latter are not. But the insidious effect of the Taleban is to make the allies more and more assertive towards the local population, ie the troops have to become more and more controlling and inhibiting of the local people, who resent this. And so slowly, I fear, it is being perceived as an army of occupation, and what limited co-operation there was in the first place is withdrawn. Shades of Vietnam. And here I have a question: the justification for Vietnam was fear of the domino effect. ‘If Vietnam goes then next we lose …’ Now, with Afghanistan, we have the fear that if we pull out then Pakistan is next in the line for militant Islamism. Realistic? Or exaggerated fear? I have no idea. It makes me want to pray for our leaders, who surely have some difficult decisions, that they may be given a spirit of discernment.
There is one thing that we all need to remember:
The British Army tried and failed to subdue Afghanistan in the 1800s, the Russians tried it in the 1980s and got their heads handed to them, and now we’re trying to stabilize the country and pacify it and getting nowhere. The Afghans are a tribal society; always have been and always will be, and they’ve been killing each other for centuries over the hashish crop, among other things. Intertribal rivalries are endemic, with people in one valley being traditional enemies of the people in the next valley. No amount of Western influence is ever going to change these people. They are what they are. They hate each other, and they distrust outsiders.
#3: If “these people” are not considered worthy of freedom or democracy how will we ever consider them worthy of the Gospel?
[Inappropriate comment deleted by Elf]
#4. St. Paul saw that every slave in Rome was worthy of the Gospel. It has arrived for all and without strings. “These people” are worthy of freedom, especially that provided by the Gospel. Our Great Commission is to take that Gospel to them — not to assure them any particular form of government or standard of living.
The problem is that we are actually there to change Afghanistan from being a haven for al Quaida – no other real reason or U.S. interest there. In order to do that, we have to change the country into one that will not tolerate al Quaida or the Taliban, who protects al Quaida as long as it is in the Taliban’s interest. When there is little central control, we have to resign ourselves to be an occupying force to start organizing government from the ground up. With a population as uneducated and tribal as Afghanistan has, this is a very long-term and expensive project. And even if we are successful, al Quaida simply will move to some other poor, uneducated country like Somalia and takeover, in order to prepare its evil programs and actions. Solution: Christian evangelism – around the world. Perhaps we are reaping the lack of mission of Christian churches throughout the world in the past.
Good military strategy builds strong military morale. Unfortunately, good military strategy is bad liberal politics and vice versa. What we have in Afghanistan is an irreconcilable mismatch.
With the election of our current President and Congress we have lost our stomach to do what is necessary to win or, at the very least, avoid losing in Afghanistan. It is probably best for Afghanistan and us that we just fold our tents and come home and stop wasting the lives of our good and brave Soldiers and Marines. Of course, as a consequence we’ll have to hunker down at home in anticipation of the next 9/11 which surely will be strongly encouraged by the vacuum the Taliban and al Quaida will quickly fill coupled with the enemy’s perception of our impotence.
Elections do very much have consequences. Sadly, we are living that fact in 3-D and Technicolor.