Will It Ever End?

Why are we now winning the war against ISIS? Because Trump is taking a back seat and letting the Generals have it their way in terrorist countries. After 16 years of war, Americans are trying new ways to eliminate ISIS and it is working well. Our armed forces are approaching the most dangerous areas from the skies with dropping bombs and swarming areas with helicopters armed with high powered machine guns not ground troops driving over land mines creating a population of dismembered American Veterans.  It is successful. Now Pakistan is under pressure for being a safe haven for terrorists. Trump has cut humanitarian funding to Pakistan. This new policy is targeting Taliban leaders. From the skies our Air Force is targeting the drug laboratories that turn their most common crop Opium into Heroin. The drug money is an important source of revenue that funded the terrorists. The leaders are being targeted, the people are being targeted and their funding is being targeted but how can we stop our home grown terrorists renting trucks and killing us on American soil?

The war is still far from over because the Middle Eastern new generation of grown children have not seen any benefit to a liberation of killing their leaders. They are still poor, uneducated, starving and all their parents and family have been killed by the rest of the world.  A 16 year war is devastating with little rewards. The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in United States history. Over the years America’s goals and strategies have changed. Trump offers yet another new plan. President Trump has sent 3,000 more troops to the region to train and assist the Afghan Army. The capitol of Afghanistan, Kabul is now so dangerous it is unsafe to drive anywhere in the city. The free government there is very weak.

Now soldiers are NOT allowed to use the roads. They can’t even drive the two miles from the airport to the United States headquarters. After 16 years of war, 2,400 American lives killed, thousands of mentally and physically permanently injured Veterans and a trillion dollars spent on war, the main city in Afghanistan is not a stable place. The airport in Kabul now has the nickname called Embassy Air because during rush hour the place is full of helicopters transporting American and our allies working at the Embassy for just a five minute flight to headquarters. Just a few years ago American convoys drove on the roads but they were full of land mines. So how is it progress if we still can’t drive just two miles down a road and not be safe? At least we are experiencing less causalities.

No United States General has spent more time there than John Nickolson  who feels that flying over roads and not driving over roads is much safer. Soldier safety is more important now than taking over land. 16 years ago the population of Kabul was 500,000 people. Now there are more than 5 million people in Kabul mostly refugees desperate for work. Suicide bombers are everywhere doing muck damage to any institution or hospital. General Nickolson took over the area in 2016 when less than 2,000 soldiers were deployed there. Trump and others were pressuring Obama to get out of the war. Now Trump is reinvesting in war.

Truck bombs are killing 150 people at a time there often hitting police stations and businesses. The level of brutality and heartlessness is at a new level from a generation of grown kids who know nothing but killing and war. Parts of the city have 20 foot concrete walls that make the place unrecognizable and have become a series of mazes. The war has changed from a war against armies to a war against people. Now 21 international terrorists groups are operating in Afghanistan. Factories are producing suicide bombers. Terrorists have made people have deep doubts against the weak government. The government has the same problem as the western world has in futile attempts to stop the suicide bombers in America,  Britain , France and globally. Just in Afghanistan the problem of suicide bombings is far too frequent.

The city has turned into a concrete prison. Is that what Trump wants along our borders too? In just 4 months last year more than 4 thousand Afghan soldiers and police were wounded. Another 2,500 killed. If the United States pulls out, the weak government there would collapse within days. American taxpayers bankroll 90% of the Afghan defense budget. That is more than $4 billion dollars per year. $30 billion dollars have been spent rebuilding the country. The city has risen from the ruins but at a great price and is still a very dangerous place to be. The main industry is to make coffins and prostatic limbs. The war might be over for most American soldiers but the war has increased in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the good folks are suffering in large numbers.

Hope is being lost. In 16 years not one terrorist has renounced their cause and went for our ideals. Obama was forced under pressure to announce an exit date and that only fueled the confidence in terrorism. The General insists that now he is killing terrorists in large numbers and telling them to lay down their weapons and join society. Can we be sure we can change a cold, unloved, kid who has only saw all his loved ones killed in his lifetime to stop the hate? We can never trust an exit strategy again. The General expects to see real change in the terrorist cities within two years.