(originally published on the God's Politics blog, May 6, 2011)
by Jim Wallis
Chief Executive Officer, Sojourners
"There is no more room or time for excuses. The war in Afghanistan — now the longest war in American history — no longer has any justification, and I am calling upon Christians, along with other people of good, moral sense, to lead the effort to finally end this war and bring our troops home. On moral, financial, and strategic grounds, the continuation of the war in Afghanistan cannot be justified. The completion of the largest and most expensive manhunt in history for Osama bin Laden must be a turning point to completely rethink our response to terrorism. The threats of terrorists are still real, but it is now clear that full-scale military action is not the most effective response.
"It was the campaign against bin Laden and al Qaeda that was always used to justify the war in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus has said there are about 100 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. We have more than 100,000 American troops and another 40,000 coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. That means 1,400 soldiers for each al Qaeda fighter. It costs about $1 million a year to deploy and support each American soldier — or more than $100 billion a year total. That breaks down to our country spending $1 billion per year, per al Qaeda fighter. Every deficit hawk in America should now oppose this war. The cost is simply too high, especially when compared with . . ."
To read the entire article, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment