A growing majority of Americans, Republicans included, are beginning
to feel that way about the neighborhood we call the Middle East. An
April Pew poll found that 59 percent of Americans, including 48 percent
of Mitt Romney supporters, favored withdrawing U.S. troops from
Afghanistan “as soon as possible.” The month before, a majority of both
Democrats and Republicans surveyed told Pew that the United States had
no responsibility to stop the slaughter of civilian protesters in Syria.
The public’s frustration is understandable. Over eight years of operations in Iraq, the United States suffered nearly 5,000 military fatalities and spent nearly $800 billion to take down the country’s Sunni dictator and suppress the ensuing Sunni insurgency, only to have the successor Shi’ite government eject our troops from the bases we had planned to keep, turning into a white elephant our $750 million “mother of all embassies” in Baghdad.
After 11 years (and counting) in Afghanistan, with nearly 2,000 military fatalities and almost half a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money spent, we must bear reports of our officers being gunned down by Afghan soldiers and police and of pallet-loads of hundred-dollar bills being whisked away through the Kabul airport. Having spent so much money and lost so many troops in both countries, we are left to wonder whether these sacrifices, far from winning friends and allies, have simply nurtured a new generation of foes in the Middle East.
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/neighborhood-watch/
The public’s frustration is understandable. Over eight years of operations in Iraq, the United States suffered nearly 5,000 military fatalities and spent nearly $800 billion to take down the country’s Sunni dictator and suppress the ensuing Sunni insurgency, only to have the successor Shi’ite government eject our troops from the bases we had planned to keep, turning into a white elephant our $750 million “mother of all embassies” in Baghdad.
After 11 years (and counting) in Afghanistan, with nearly 2,000 military fatalities and almost half a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money spent, we must bear reports of our officers being gunned down by Afghan soldiers and police and of pallet-loads of hundred-dollar bills being whisked away through the Kabul airport. Having spent so much money and lost so many troops in both countries, we are left to wonder whether these sacrifices, far from winning friends and allies, have simply nurtured a new generation of foes in the Middle East.
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/neighborhood-watch/
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