6.4 Trillion dollars were spent to nation build in the Middle East in the past twenty years. 7,057 U.S. service members were killed during that time. More than 30,000 soldiers who served during that time have committed suicide. Nearly 200,000 uniformed Afghan’s, Pakistani’s,Iraqi’s, and Syrian’s, who were working with us or for their own government have died. And all of this doesn’t even include the hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties during that time. Women and children non-combatants who died for no other reason than they were in the wrong place when the Taliban, ISIS, or an American drone started their bloody business.
Honestly, I am not against the military. I understand its purpose and its need. I also understand the immense cost outside of the dollars spent and the lives lost. I have lived all my life surrounded by soldiers. Men who came home from Vietnam without legs, without remorse, or with so much regret they couldn’t live with themselves. War changes a man. My grandfather, who serviced in the Army during World War II, told me that. Before the war he was a young twenty year old called “Happy,” but they didn’t call him that when he returned from the Pacific. Like almost every war veteran I have ever known, they wouldn’t tell war stories. If you listened long enough,you’d learn some of what happened, but few if any of these people glorify what they saw or did.
This is the unseen cost. Most of us already know that. The lives unalterably changed forever. It is just part of the cost, and for the worst of it, the wives and children of those men suffer right along with them or because of what they do.
It is with all of this in mind I watched along with the rest of America the sudden collapse of a nation state we have been propping up for nearly twenty years fall in a matter of days. That was a giant shock to most of the people who had no idea of the reality of this war or the last few. Even when we have entered conflict with the goal of winning, which hasn’t always been the case, we couldn’t realize when we had won and end the conflict. For example in 2003 and2004 the Taliban was beaten and they were offering peace. Why didn’t we do what was in our best interest and the best interest of the Afghan and Pakistani people and negotiate a lasting peace? Simply because the donors to our politicians hadn’t made enough money yet, and we as a nation were arrogant to forget the cost of staying somewhere against an enemy who feels they have no choice but to continue to fight.
Of course we didn’t help ourselves when we lied many of our allies into a second front in our war on terror. Instead of finishing one job we took on a second and couldn’t do either effectively. I know there are soldiers out there who will argue with that statement, and that’s fine. I don’t say our soldiers didn’t do their job. They did what they were expected to do. It isn’t their fault that America has lost another pointless war and spent trillions to accomplish nothing. When you have feckless leaders whose only goal is maintain power and acquire more money then the people suffer.
If our nation has to spend nearly 800 billion dollars a year on a military that accomplishes nothing, then I say we are being robbed. The nation that spends the second highest amount, China, spends less than a third of what we do, and if you ask most Americans we consider them a strong threat. They sure seem to be getting their money’s worth when they spend only 252 billion. How about our threat from Russia that spends just over 70 billion? Sure, none of these nations have to maintain a worldwide network of bases, but we developed that as a response to last centuries wars and lessons. China and Russia may not have bases in other parts of the world, but they still have allies and sympathizers who would allow them access and transport if they requested it. Instead we have bases in nations that don’t always want us there. Bases which we pay a premium for just for the right to stage a new offensive against some perceived enemy whose oil we need, or who gave us the middle finger one time back in high school.