Why the hell are we still in Afghanistan? Let's get the fuck out!

     With Syria and Egypt dominating the headlines in recent weeks, it's easy to forget that we're still fighting the war in Afghanistan. I mean, it's only the longest war in U.S. history. It's been going on for so long that people just take it for granted that it will always be there. It's been going on for the majority of my lifetime. I remember when it started, when I was in 6th grade. It seems like an eternity ago. And yet we're still there, wasting American lives and money, for what?!

Afghan kids killed by a NATO airstrike

      Osama Bin Laden has been dead for over two years. Al-Qaeda has mostly moved on from Afghanistan and into Pakistan, Yemen, and Northern Africa. It makes no sense that we still have tens of thousands of soldiers and mercenaries in Afghanistan, and thousands of civilian workers risking their lives for the rich American oligarchy that has America in it's greedy vice. In fact, this whole war has NEVER made any sense. It's not like it was a good idea at the beginning and then turned bad, no, it was rotten from the very core, the very beginning. I will make this argument by listing the reasons the U.S. government gave for invading Afghanistan back in 2001, and go into each reason individually and say why each one of them is complete bullshit.

1. To go after Al-Qaeda: You don't send hundreds of thousands of soldiers halfway across the world to go after a couple of dozen of people. Wait, what's that you asked? Al-Qaeda was only several dozen people at the time of 9/11? Yep, that's right: http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/2010/09/16/how-many-al-qaeda-can-you-live-with/  Al-Qaeda was only 200 members at the time of 9/11. That's 200 worldwide, total. Who knows how many of those 200 were in Afghanistan, but even it was the majority, like 101, you don't send hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fight 101 people. Anyone who knows anything the military, policing tactics, counter-insurgency, would know that is a HORRIBLE idea. You would be much more effective if you did small scale counter-insurgency operations with a small force of elite units like a SEAL team or the Army Rangers. They would do home invasions, disrupting operations, infiltration, drone strikes, etc. If you send a whole bunch of troops over, they end up dealing and wasting time with other people that are not Al-Qaeda. Which is exactly what happened. The insurgency against the US is not an Al-Qaeda insurgency, it's a Taliban one. We ended up fighting the Taliban, who had nothing to do with 9/11, and who offered to give us Bin Laden, but we rejected that offer: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011014/aponline135016_000.htm Why did we reject that offer? Because we wanted to go to war!!!!
2. To deny Al-Qaeda the space needed to plan another attack against us: That's an impossible task to deny any group, because you only need one house to have the resources and space needed to pull off an attack like 9/11. Remember, 9/11 was committed by only 19 people. To deny people that such a small amount of space, you would need to have a soldier in every house in the world, and we have an Constitutional amendment against that, motherfuckers. 
3. The Taliban, by allowing Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to be in Afghanistan, were guilty of the crimes of 9/11 just as much: No, just because you know someone, or have someone over to your house, does not mean you are guilty of all the crimes they may have done. That's like if a radical French group attacked the US, so then we respond by invading and occupying France. It wasn't the French people's fault, they aren't responsible for the crimes of a few. It wasn't the French government's fault, they didn't do anything. So it makes absolutely no sense to invade and occupy Afghanistan for the crimes of a couple of dozen people. 

     So if it wasn't for any of those reasons, then why did we invade Afghanistan?

• To establish a base of operations that is strategically located in Central Asia, i.e. to better run operations in Iran, Pakistan, etc. That's right, we invaded an innocent country to better our military and political standing in the world. This is something that we should leave back in the 18th and 19th centuries. That's something straight out of a video game or a board game, not real life. To be civilized people, we don't invade other countries just to strengthen ourselves. The government and its media lackeys made up this whole narration listed above to make our invasion sound legitimate, when in fact it was only launched to benefit the military-industrial complex.
• To get the vast amount of mineral resources that are in Afghanistan, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  Again, we only did it to better ourselves, our own fat pockets. The government didn't care about protecting us or saving Afghan women. No, they did it for wealth.

        So there you have it. The entire Afghan war narrative that we have been fed, some from childhood, has been ONE ENTIRE STINKING FUCKING BULLSHIT LIE. Every person in the Bush Administration who was for the Afghan war should be hanged for launching a terrorist war against a people who were minding their own fucking business. So, 12 years later, what can the average American citizen do to try and bring this phony war to an end?

1. Write to the president and your elected officials, saying, in more politer terms of course: "BRING THE FUCKING TROOPS HOME."
2. Look at the voting record of any elected official running for office that you can vote for. If he/she voted to go to war or voted at any time to keep being in the war, do not vote for that candidate. That will send a message to the government that the American people are sick and tired of going to war to benefit the 1% and the military industrial complex. 
3. Explore the platform of the Libertarian party. Both Republicans and Democrats are addicted to starting long wars that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people who didn't do a single damn thing, just to line their pockets with more money and power. But Libertarians offer an alternative to the "two party" system that is ruining our country, primarily because it is no longer a two party system, but rather an elitist oligarchy. Their official website is:  http://www.lp.org/  
4. Speak out against the war, just like I'm doing now. It can be over social media, it can be a protest in front of the White House, it can be a petition, etc. Get the word out, start people talking about this, because silence is compliance. If we're silent, that gives our jackass government the red light to continue this illegal, immoral, terrorist war.