US military deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000

[morningfog]

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. military deaths in the Afghan war have reached 2,000, a cold reminder of the human cost of an 11-year-old conflict that now garners little public interest at home as the United States prepares to withdraw most of its combat forces by the end of 2014.

The toll has climbed steadily in recent months with a spate of attacks by Afghan army and police — supposed allies — against American and NATO troops. That has raised troubling questions about whether countries in the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan will achieve their aim of helping the government in Kabul and its forces stand on their own after most foreign troops depart in little more than two years.

* * *

Although Obama has pledged that most U.S. combat troops will leave by the end of 2014, American, NATO and allied troops are still dying in Afghanistan at a rate of one a day.

Even with 33,000 American troops back home, the U.S.-led coalition will still have 108,000 troops — including 68,000 from the U.S. — fighting in Afghanistan at the end of this year. Many of those will be training the Afghan National Security Forces that are to replace them.

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/30/us_military_deaths_in_afghanistan_hit_2000_2/

[Arctic Dave]

1. Flame away at me, but it is hard to have sympathy for anyone still involved in this clusterfuck.

Nobody cares because it was a stupid idea from the beginning to go into Afghanistan and it is an even more stupid idea to still be there 11 years later.

It's not like someone in the military now can say, "I didn't know I was going to have to go over there".

[morningfog]

2. Surely you can find sympathy for the bereaving families and our scarred nation

if you can't bring yourself to consider the wide variety of reasons (including desperation and poverty) that someone may join the military, even when at war.

[Arctic Dave]

5. Read my other post.

Killing and subjugating other people for your own comfort is not a good enough reason.

Join a gang if that is a reason, it is the same logic.

[morningfog]

7. Hey, lots of these people were kids when they joined.

I don't expect them to have the best or most well-developed judgment. They are lured in with lies and their desperation is exploited. You can't feel sympathy for them, that's fine. I hope you can understand why I do.

[coalition_unwilling]

3. Not a flame but merely an observation that Lyndie England (of Abu Ghraib fame) said

the reason she enlisted was that there were no jobs within a 60-mile radius of her home aside from WalMart.

I have sympathy for every victim of the poverty draft (meaning enlisted). Officers (read 'mercenaries' and 'ticket punchers'), not so much. The politicians who put them there: none whatsoever.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Sorry, not a good enough reason.

Inflicting damage and suffering on other people as a job gets zero sympathy from me.

[coalition_unwilling]

6. I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree when it comes to

the working class and our attitude towards it. ('Enlisted' equals 'working class'.)

Do you have the same opinion of police officers and corrections officers? They also inflict "damage and suffering" on people too, some of whom arguably do not deserve it.

My attitude towards the police has begun to change, based on the LAPD's shabby and brutal treatment of Occupy Los Angeles demonstrators last year. Not quite ready to write the police off in toto, but starting to view them as class traitors and paid agents (read 'mercenaries') of the ruling class.

[Arctic Dave]

10. This has nothing to do with working class.

Lame attempt to not stand up for what is right.

Joining the military is not the same as Police or corrections officers, it is more like joining gangbangers.

[morningfog]

15. You do realize that many, maybe most of those who have died enlisted before 2001?

[Arctic Dave]

18. And that matters how?

What does that have to do with killing people in Iraq?

Face it, they had a choice, They choose moral cowardice by not speaking up about what they were doing was wrong.

[morningfog]

19. I am anti-war, without qualification.

One of the reasons is that war exploits the vulnerable in our country by sending them to do the dirty work. But, I still respect and sympathize with as people. War is always wrong. Every person in the military, however, does not deserve to die.

You have no idea how these 2,000 died, what their roles were at the time or what path took them there. Get off you high horse. Or don't, but you are only embarrassing yourself.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. It's the military. They're under orders. They can't just pick-up and leave on their own.

[Arctic Dave]

9. Bullshit. They did not have to join in the first place.

And, they do not have to follow orders at any time if they feel it is an unlawful order.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

12. How about those who joined since Jan 20, 2009?

And the lawfulness of orders is not as subjective as you pretend. That's why the birther officer was court-martialed.

[Arctic Dave]

13. It is totally subjective.

He didn't want to go, he stood up for his belief, right or wrong. He did what he thought was right.

At anytime a person in the military can disobey an order they feel is wrong.

As for those who joined after Jan. 20. 2009, they are biggest idiots of all if they think they would not be deployed to subjugant Afghanistan, Iraq and any other country we don't approve of.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. So Obama is deploying troops to subjugate. How -- interesting.

[porphyrian]

11. Time to bring them home now. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Oh, that's OK. The MIC is still cashing in and now we have drones to win the war.

Well, at least the drones will make it look like we didn't lose it...sort of.

[cr8tvlde]

20. Bring. Them. Home. Now.

George Bush's Murderous Folly. Full employment program for rural and poor kids. We weren't there for "democracy" and the "Afghan National Security Forces" will merge back in with the Taliban and live their own culture like they've done for millenia. Ask the Russians. We got what we went there for ... pipelines and yes, fat contracts for our Military-Industrial-Petro Complex.

Every year we fool ourselves we did the "noble thing" more people get killed.

We need a Vet's bill, however, to give them American infrastructure programs and jobs and to get the Republicans out of the way.