Is the Afghan war worth it?

Let me give you a couple of thoughts on the Afghan war. Well not only the Afghan war, but the pandering self-serving government officials who like to talk about war. I read an article this morning and I almost lost it. The link is below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/opinion/dowd-heart-of-darkness.html?_r=1

From the article:

“lawmakers on both sides looking visibly sapped by our draining decade of wars”

Therein lays the problem.  

How exactly does a “lawmaker” become sapped from decades of war? I mean is it harder for him or her to sit there on their collective @$$ and make self-serving political statements? No. They are just sick of answering letter after e-mail after phone call from families who want to know why the government (our government) is treating their military families like crap! I am sure it’s quite “draining”.

 You might think these representatives of the people would like to win, since we decided to go to war, but no. They would rather ask this stupid question (probably because they were handed it by some staffer) “What is the metric?” Well here is your answer.

Our President already determined the metric. It’s a date on a calendar (and one that is politically expedient, of course).  If you think it’s a coincidence that implementation of the Affordable Care Act and the end of Afghan war lined up in 2014, you need to look at an election calendar. Nothing makes a war easier to lose than telling the enemy when you will quit. Do you believe that the degradation of our effort in Afghanistan isn’t precipitated by declaring a pull-out date? Well then you are a fool.  Nothing (and I mean nothing) saps the motivation of a combat force like their leader throwing in the towel, whether it’s immediately or X number of years in the future. If you don’t remember what the military was like after Vietnam, read about it. It wasn’t the proud vibrant force you saw after Desert Storm or the twenty years since.  The demoralization of our military is well underway. This administration has made the war an albatross.

The crux of the problem isn’t a war. The crux is, none (on either side) of our country’s current leaders have really been focused on winning this war or fixing this country’s issues.  They are focused on the same thing they always are, their re-election.

Do you want to fix government handouts and stop expensive wars? If so, we must: stop allowing the self-serving politicians make laws and then exclude themselves from complying, stop them from allowing wars to go on without a formal declaration, stop them from doing anything, unless it serves their constituents in accordance with the Constitution, and stop them from making “Representative” or “Senator” a career field.