by Nathan Lindberg
I think I speak for the majority of Americans when another news announcer asks, “What will happen to Iraq and Afghanistan when the US troops leave?” and I mutter to the cat, “I don’t care.” If you missed that I’d like to say it again. Afghanistan and Iraq --- I don’t care. No caring here. Zero. I have more caring about what shoes Britney Spears will wear to rehab than to be told how absolutely terrible everything over “there” is.
It’s not that I am cold hearted and don’t feel for the people. Actually, I truly think if I hung out with the average Afghani or Iranian we’d probably get along all right. Sure, we might have to avoid certain subjects, like religion, women’s lib, eating goat eyes, George Bush (they might like him), and political cartoons…But if we just hung out and talked about our kids and maybe drank some tea, we’d probably get along fine. And if one of them said they needed some helping herding some cattle or adding a harddrive to their PC, I’d be glad to lend a hand. But me and the equivalent of me – a guy who wants his daughters to finish their homework and their wife to stop telling them to not belch at the dinner table – is not what I think of when I think of the United States Army in the Mid-East.
When I think of the US war/aid/nation building/military action/occupation/freedom rescue/whatever-the-term-for-today-is, I think of a lot of really terrible men stealing about 99 percent of the money we are pumping over there. I picture these men stealing our money sitting behind large piles of cash laughing and calling Americans complete idiots. Most of these men I picture live in Texas and/or are named Cheney. Meanwhile the Afghani and the Iraqi who are the equivalent of me might have heard rumors of a public bathroom the marines constructed that unfortunately was bombed 20 minutes after the first flush and no one wants to go outside anymore anyway.
No offense to Afghani guy who is equivalent of me, but what I really don’t care about is sending 800 billion dollars to about 40 men who we have made so filthy rich that my only hope is to mow their lawn some day. Call me cheap, but I’d like some health insurance, some social security checks, maybe even some jobs. I am sick of shipping all our money straight into IED bombs.
Oh, I know, politics, terrorist, Al Qaeda, Exxon’s oil, Haliburton executive bonuses, we will never give up and we are Americans, damn it. Let me repeat. “I don’t care.” Let’s lose. Let them have their own country. It’s very, very, very clear that they don’t want us and we are doing absolutely no good there. If we leave now, everything we have built up will be gone in about 14 minutes. If stay another 40 years then leave, everything we built up will be gone in about 15 minutes. What’s the difference? About 900 billion more dollars, that’s the difference.
Time to leave, go, goodbye, see you later. It’s your country and why were we ever there? Chalk it up to lesson very well learned. Russia did it, so can we. Move over France, it’s time for some good old isolationism. And those men with the big cash piles? Do you need your lawn mowed? I could use a job because I’m broke.
by Nathan Lindberg
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