Why are we in Afghanistan?
If you answered, "I'm not sure anymore," you gave the same answer as the other 99.9% of us.
We invaded Afghanistan in the beginning, ostensibly, to pick up bin Laden and pals. Bush and Cheney blew that off and invaded Iraq.
General McChrystal wants 40,000 additional troops and ten more years, guesstimated to cost a mere $800 billion. If we aren't mad at bin Laden, why are we still there?
Many people last week advised the president not to do this, and perhaps the most surprising was Rep. Jane Harman of California, perhaps the democrats' most strident war hawk.
We're in Afghanistan to protect vital oil pipelines and the heroin trade from falling into the hands of the people's armies.
Did I say heroin trade? That's right. The United States and other nations funnel barrels of money out of the illegal drug trade to fund secret weapon and technology development, and the operation of military black ops, also thought to consume 25% of GDP if not more.
The people making these decisions consider this money siphoning as among the most patriotic of official ventures. It isn't that no one knows why we're in Afghanistan. It is that the people who know don't want to talk about it.
