President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan is welcome news, in one sense. Our part of the war will finally be over. But it’s 20 years too late. And his claim that we achieved our goals is absurd. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban won. We lost another war where we did not belong.
afghan war
Voices from the Grave:
So Proudly We Fail
In “So Proudly We Fail,” James Agee looked at war films to explain the “unutterable dislocation” between soldiers and civilians, what he described–in 1943–as a destructive “chasm” that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan describe with equal anger today even as the nation goes through the motions of marking its Veteran and Memorial days.
April 13, 1975
April 13, 1975, marks the first day of the Lebanese Civil War. On the 40th anniversary, FlaglerLive editor Pierre Tristam remembers that day as he lived it in Lebanon, and reflects on what the date has meant for two generations of Lebanese.
Colossal Waste: U.S. Aid to Afghanistan Now Exceeds Marshall Plan, With Little Return
Adjusted for inflation, U.S. appropriations for the reconstruction of Afghanistan exceed the funds committed to the Marshall Plan, the U.S. aid program that delivered billions of dollars between 1948 and 1952 to help 16 European countries recover in the aftermath of World War II.
Missing Memorials to Two Lost Wars
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, but as Iraq and Afghanistan have been lost, the focus of memorials has shifted from wars to the cult of the soldiers, while victims of war are as always passed over in silence.
American Soldiers Committing Atrocities: Placing the Blame Where It Belongs
From posing with corpses of insurgents to going on murderous rampages, American soldiers’ atrocities in Afghanistan are becoming routine. Without absolving the military of its responsibilities, the real isn’t the soldiers’ alone.
3,338 Days: U.S. Occupation of Afghanistan Is Now Longer Than Soviet Union’s
A photo gallery of the human and inhuman side of a conflict that’s worse than Vietnam in many ways, and is damaging American strategic and financial interests–with no end in sight. The only clear winner: al-Qaeda.
Offshoring War: How Obama—and Those Moments of Silence—Insult Military Sacrifice
When a president sends soldiers to die in a war that long ago ceased having a claim to being just or to being won, those Americans are no longer being sacrificed by their nation. They’re being murdered. The complicity is national.
Brainless: How the Pentagon Denies
Purple Hearts to Soldiers With Head Trauma
Long a laggard in recognizing head traumas and mental-health issues on par with more physically visible wounds, the Pentagon is refusing to award Purple Hearts to some soldiers despite evidence of injuries.
Firing McChrystal Isn’t Enough. Fire the War.
The McChrystal firing is the Obama administration’s grandest distraction from a failing war it still pretends to be winnable.
The Many Deaths of Pat Tillman
Dirty wars make for dirty stories. Tillman’s is one of them for the way the Army and Gen. McChrystal covered up his death by “friendly fire” then whitewashed investigation after investigation.