Homeward Bound: Journey from Afghanistan

In a previous blog post entitled Homeward Bound: Journey form Afghanistan, I discussed the decline of American support for the war in Afghanistan in relation to the collective time that the troops have been deployed. One reader, however, expressed concern as to why American’s support for the war would shift. There are a number of reasons. As stated in last weeks post, one of these reasons is the unexpectedly long time period that soldiers have been overseas. Another reason is the media’s continued outpour of controversy involved with the war efforts. The most recent of such controversy being accusations that U.S. soldiers have made sport of murdering Afghan-civilians.

The controversy first came to light after one of the five murder suspects, Adam Winfield, reported the incidents to authorities. According to Winfield, as recounted by David Griffin of CNN in the article entitled Army may have known in February about Afghan murder, the murders committed had been premeditated and were even bragged about after the fact. Griffin’s article also provides a video of Winfield’s Army interrogation in which he communicates the happenings of the murders to the interrogating officer. Since then, there has been increased media coverage on the topic and hearings to determine whether the suspects will go to trial have begun.

Jeremy Morlock is the first of the murder suspects to have had a hearing. In Hearing begins in alleged plot to murder Afghans, an article by the associated press, the proceedings of Morlock’s hearing are chronicled. The associated press puts forth more information about the case in statements that “members of the platoon mutilated Afghan corpses and even collected fingers and other body parts, and that some posed for photos with Afghan corpses.” This being said, how could Americans continue to support this war.

As Americans we trust our military to protect us from foreign threats, and build strong ties with others. We do not expect to be that foreign threat, that malicious entity that commits war crimes against innocent individuals. If war crimes like those stated previously are taking place at a time when we expect our troops to be helping Afghan civilians, then how can we continue to support the idea of soldiers remaining in Afghanistan. There is a line in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Night which reads, "Either you die the hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Americans don’t want to be the villain of the world; therefore, support for the war in Afghanistan is waning.

Homeward Bound: Journey from Afghanistan

Nine years ago on September 11, 2001, the United States suffered a number of attacks from an Afghan-terrorist group known as Al Qaeda. This devastating occurrence resulted in an immense number of casualties as well as the destruction of the World Trade Center (specifically the Twin Towers). Following this mindless attack, the U.S. quickly responded with the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops on October 7, 2001, less than one month after the attack.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that when the United States went to war with Afghanistan in 2001, Americans had a great level of support for the endeavor. The recent devastation that U.S. citizens had faced was assertive to Americans’ uncontrollable desire for revenge; the nation needed answers and the war served as just that: an answer. However, as the years continue to pass and United States’ troops remain at war, America’s support has declined greatly. Poll: Waning support for Obama on wars, an article written by Richard Wolf of USA Today, expresses the recent decline in President Obama’s approval rating in relation to his handling of the war efforts. The article conveys the message that Americans are collectively becoming more and more favorable to the retraction of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Wolf states, “Support for Obama's management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February [2010] poll.”

The reason is mainly due to what Thomas Nagorski chronicles in his article, Editor's Notebook: Afghan War Now Country's Longest. Nagorski explains the change in support for the war, presenting that this war is the longest war the United States has ever been involved in. This long and drawn out war effort has increased American’s desire for the troops to come home, since it was never expected for the war to last this long. Nagorski states, “Surely, it seemed, this would be a brief campaign…And yet here we are, nearly a decade since that October Sunday, and the end of this often-tabbed "Other War" is hard to see, or fathom.”

With this war lasting what seems like an eternity and the wound from September 11, 2001 becoming an old scar, it is time for the U.S. government to begin implementing a plan that will bring this war to a close. America wants their sons and daughters to come home. Husbands miss their wives; wives miss their husbands, and most importantly children need their parents.

Government vs. Katrina

There are a lot of things people don't know about the government and what they did when hurricane Katrina hit. They fail to realize all the good the government done did for them during the situation and after but since most of the people are just stating all the bad that happened people start to think the government is no good for us. If you really pay attention to what happen then you would understand that the government couldn't really do nothing to avoid this problem because no one in they right mind would be able to plan something like that and have a plan to stop it from happening. They did do all what they can to help as many people like in the begin when they found out it was all going to happen they told the people and wanted to make them all leave but a lot could not cause they didn't have the right amount of money to leave. Then during the fact they found out a lot of people stayed so they sent out rescue groups to save the lives of the ones who stayed. Even when the hurricane Katrina was still there some people still risked there lives to save people they don't know because everybody was blaming the government for way went down.
Now if we look at what the stats show for what the government sent out during the hurricane and after you would say dang they did a good job. Scott Price told the news reporter "The scale of operations during the Katrina response defies imagination and the statistics generated are almost unbelievable. Search and rescue operations alone saved 24,135 lives from imminent danger, usually off the roofs of the victims’ homes as flood waters lapped at their feet. Coast Guardsmen “evacuated to safety” 9,409 patients from local hospitals. In total, 33,545 souls owed their lives to the men and women of the nation’s oldest continuous-going sea service, nearly equaling the number of persons the Coast Guard saves during a calendar year". See if people would have actually looked at these stats they would feel bad because they would realize now that the government did try and help more then what people think so some would change they though on the government and others would still think the same. Also the government did not have to send the coast guards out there to save them people because they government did tell all the people to leave so it wasn't they fault that a lot decided to stay so think about that.