How do we blame this on Bush?

When Iraq was not going well, the news organs opened each days broadcast with tallies of troops killed in Iraq. This was done in the hopes of stirring up anti-war feelings in the population. This was essentially Propaganda, which is a fair way to describe it. Propaganda is often believed to be false information. The most effective propaganda is true information that is presented in a spectacular, or consistant manner.

World War I saw a great deal of Propaganda from both sides, the English had the most effective, describing the brutalities of the German Army on civilian populations in Belgium and France.

So the daily update of casualties in Iraq while Bush was President can be honestly and accurately described as Propaganda, especially after you realize that those numbers aren't broadcast daily now, with President Obama in office. It's sort of like the absence of homeless stories when a Democrat is President, while the flood of such stories when a Republican is in office makes you believe that the homeless problem only crops up when Republicans are in charge.

So now we see that US Casualties in Afghanistan are on the rise, and the obvious question is, how do we blame this on Bush?

The Economy that has been badly mismanaged by the Democrats in Congress and the White House is Bush's fault. The War in Iraq that is going well, is not his fault, but a credit to the excellent leadership of President Obama. That is the trend of not only this administration, but all administrations. They don't want the blame, but want any credit they can get their hands on.

Now, I've discussed the situation in Afghanistan before, when looking at RNC Chairman Michael Steel's statement that Afghanistan is President Obama's war, and he owns it lock, stock, and barrel.

My conclusion was that victory was impossible, given the time requirement of sixty to eighty years, with one hundred years a distinct possibility. As I believe that there is no way for our nation to sustain an eighty year commitment, or even the sixty year commitment that would in my opinion be the shortest possible time frame needed to bring about the bare minimum of social change in the Afghani population.

I've previously suggested that soldiers do not enlist, and I stand by that statement. Especially when they are assigned impossible tasks, and asked to make the ultimate sacrifice, for a war that can't be won.

I'm not opposed to a last stand, nor am I opposed to going down fighting. However, when you're asking our troops to go and fight a war, one that can't be won for three or four generations, when you know that there is no way we'll be fighting sixty years from now, then that is using those troops to make sure you look like a strong leader. Using those troops as props to make sure you look tough is not like fighting a last stand, but is unforgivable.

So the obvious question is this. What makes Afghanistan a guaranteed loss, while Iraq appears to be a win? The difference is in social/economic/technological advancement. Iraq was for all intents and purposes a westernized nation, with Television, Radio, Newspapers, and a reasonable level of literacy among the population. That means that it's far easier to communicate with the population, and that population has been exposed to Western Ideals of Democracy and individual rights. It means that it would take the investment of less than a generation, in other words, less than twenty years to bring the population to a sustainable national democratic ideal.

Afghanistan on the other hand, has a much lower literacy among the population, and those that can read, have for the most part, never been exposed to anything but the Koran, which means that the foundation of education for the population is simply absent. It would take at least a generation to get the educational foundation started, forget about having it cemented into place.

Simply put, we can't win in Afghanistan, because we won't invest the sixty or eighty years of dedication to the advancement of the Afghani people. We're going to leave, and the Taliban or whatever organization of Muslim Extremists know it. They'll just wait until we are pulling out, and then they'll return and once again Afghanistan will be the home of Extremism in the Middle East. Our troops will have died in vain, and that is bad enough. However, from the surge on, those who die won't be dying for any reason except to show that the Politicians are willing to sacrifice others to look tough. For that reason, I must renew my advice. Do not enlist, do not re-enlist.