Sec. of Defense Gates Open to More Troops in Afghaninstan – W.P.

In today’s Washington Post, Secretary of Defense Gates is reported as being open to more troops in Afghanistan based on General MacChrystal’s recent evaluation there.  Guess what?  The American people are less and less in agreement with these guys as every day goes by.  Sorry guys, under our form of government, you have been trumped.  You can own the theories.  We own the soldiers.

Secretaries of Defense and generals mean damned little to family members who want the soldiers in their families to come home from a war that is based on foggy and muddled reasoning at best.  No. 

Guys try and listen up here. The answer is "no."  Now, did you hear that?  Did you understand it?  Good! Because it ain’t gonna’ change anytime soon based on "Defense Department evaluations" or "General so-and-so believes…." or any of that other subterfuge that governments are noted for throughout the world.  The American people are done now with all the secret deals and the foggy reasons for war there.

It is time to stop now.  It is time to bring the troops home.

It is time to turn our Offense Department back into the Defense Department that it is mandated to be under our laws. It is time to stop acting as if these soldiers were material, equipment, off-the-shelf parts in a huge machine that is completely owned by government bureaucrats.

Secretary Gates, please listen closely. You don’t own the soldiers. 

American families do. American taxpayers do. American war planners, generals, defense secretaries, presidents, vice-presidents and all the other government officials and military industrial complex robber barons are side players at best. 

These soldiers are people.  They have families.  They have family obligations and lives to live.  It is time to restore their universe to the natural balance of things.  It is time to bring them home.

The government has a mandate to "provide for the common defense".  This ongoing debacle has nothing to do with the common defense of the American people.  This is a waste of lives, money, resources and national attention that could best be served turned to other things.  We have real problems in this country that these reources would better serve here at home.

This war was wrong under the Bushites and it is still wrong under the Obamites.  It is wrong.  It does not provide for the common defense of the American people.  It is an overextension of American military might for unclear and largely unstated reasons paid for by the American people and pushed forward by the arms industries and involved government wonks for reasons that are still largely unspoken.

The soldiers belong to the people.  The people support the war less and less each day.  Our soldiers are now our only concern.

Simply bring them home.  Do it now.  We don’t want to hear about any more studies.  We don’t care that President Obama is warm to the idea of continuing this war.  We did not want the war under the Republicans and we still do not want the war under Democrats.

Bring them home.  Now.

Or be willing to suffer the consequences in social unrest.  It is building here.  It will flash over sooner than you think if you continue to waste young American lives on this "extension" of American power for reasons still unclear eight years into the killing. You are in dangerous waters now. Trust me.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)

Alexandria, Virginia