Bush Out of Troops to Send Where Needed in Afghanistan

[ralphlopez]

Now what? Bush says we need more troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon says we ain't got them.

Associated Press reporting today that Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, saying "he currently doesn't have the troops — or brigade combat teams — to send to Afghanistan because of the military commitment in Iraq."

This is after $15 billion in reconstruction money goes down a black hole (spelled "foreign contractors, KelloggRootBrown") and 6 years later the Afghan people still don't have a pot to pee in nor a window to throw it out of. Unemployment is 40%. 40%!!! What would be happening in America if unemployment was 40%?

We should be on our way out of Afghanistan by now, leaving behind a shining model of democracy, not re-fighting a war that was already won.

People are $8 a day, a princely sum in this place. Can anyone say, "bungled this war"? This week I'll try to get through to my son-in-law who's in a place he never should have had to been sent if the jobs and reconstruction had been done right from the start. Yea I'm pretty mad, I'll admit it.

A report I found from the Center for American Progress summarizes the famous ACBAR report, which recently ripped the lid of the "reconstruction":

The report also states that some 40 percent of that $15 billion has ended up back in consultants’ salaries and company profits. “Vast sums of aid are lost in the corporate profits of contractors and subcontractors, which can be as high as 50 percent on a single contract,” the report said. The recent deterioration in security and persistent lack of development outside the capital has shown that this top-down approach is not working. Failure to carry through on the reconstruction process leads to resentment among the Afghan people and opens the door for insurgents to challenge the Afghan government’s legitimacy.

How many more lives? How many more of our families shattered while well-connected people make millions, no, billions?

email congressmen and senators.

Do the job right so they can come home