10/7 - Our Other Tenth Anniversary

Today, our country passes an important anniversary, which (unlike the 9-11 anniversary) will be largely ignored by politicians and the White House. We have now been in Afghanistan for ten years. [...] Of course, the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks was an irresistible temptation for politicians who fell over each other to get to the front of public events and photo ops. Even ten years later, politicians relished the opportunity to give tough-on-terror speeches and proclaim their hawkish records on terror. In contrast, the Afghanistan war is a subject no one wants to talk about.

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We have now been in Afghanistan longer than any prior war from the Revolutionary War to World War II to Vietnam.

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We have had 2 million troops in the country and lost roughly 1,700 lives. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet, the President and other politicians would prefer to have the anniversary pass without much notice for good reason. It has been a disaster and it is not improving.

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Afghan leaders repeatedly have called for us to leave the country. The corrupt president of the country has repeatedly called the West an enemy, stripped women of protections, expressed a desire to be with the Taliban, and sought to tax even the aid to his country.

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To try to achieve any level of peace, we are now trying to hand over parts of the country to the Taliban and extremist religious groups.

Jonathan Turley

Happy anniversary.