Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tom Hayden asks the $100,000 question
"Why die for Karzai?" is the title of Tom Hayden's op-ed in the LA Times. The $100,000 is the amount paid to the survivors of every US serviceman or woman who dies.
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Fifty-nine Americans died in October fighting to protect the corrupt Afghan electoral process that resulted in a second five-year term for Hamid Karzai. Since July and the run-up to the August election, 195 Americans were killed and more than 1,000 were wounded, a higher casualty rate than during the 2007 military "surge" in Iraq. A principal purpose cited by President Obama for sending 17,000 more combat troops to Afghanistan earlier this year was to protect the election, which, according to most observers, Karzai stole.With all the geo-political and diplo-strategic bullshit passing between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the White House, the true value of each life lost and each $Million spent is probably impossible to see. And when you are really, really important, little people don't count for much anyway.
Has it occurred to anyone in the White House national security circles or the pundit class that these recent American deaths were wasteful and immoral? That sending Americans to die for an unpopular regime of warlords, landlords, drug dealers and CIA assets (Karzai's brother) is impossible to justify? And that rather than admitting the mistake, the president and his advisors are preparing to compound it?
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