Open Letter to President Obama on Afghanistan

President Obama,

Welcome to Madison, Wisconsin today, Nov. 4, 2009. One year since the nation elected you as president. Saw you that below-zero night in February at the Kohl Center last year, the night the D.C.-area primaries put you on track to win the nomination. Never seen an event like that night; one of the guys I was with looked over at me and said "Bobby," a clear reference to the idea that we were electing someone to stop war and serve people and everyone believed it.      

I have to say, not crazy about reading the newest DoD news that Combat Advisors See Afghan Troops in Action. Sounds like a lot of crap to me. Of the latest DoD release, DoD Identifies Marine Casualty. That’s a waste of another good man.

As you make your deliberations on the future course of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, please consider the words of a Vietnam War Marine combat veteran who served after Bobby was taken from us in 1968.

"Ever wonder how so many ‘warriors’ [Generals] got so chummy with a government full of civilian draft dodgers? … Think of how much fun it is sending others out to fight unplanned and even utterly purposeless wars when you live in world dripping with nothing but the best life can give and still be called, not only a warrior but hero to boot. …. Now consider Afghanistan where two in a hundred can read. Ask a farmer if he is part of an Arab plot to plant sleeper cells across Europe and the US to kill millions of civilians so America will send thousands of troops to his poor and isolated country and blow up his hut? You are, of course, talking to someone who has never traveled more than 10 miles in his life.”

The brass didn’t elect you; we did. And killing poor people is not what we had in mind. Bring the troops home, yes we can.

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