Frank Georgalis – Writer

A Way Out of Afghanistan

There is verse in a popular song that says, “Fools rush in while wise men stay out,” It was George W. Bush who rushed into Afghanistan with some of his cronies leading the way, some pushing him to go ahead and some following close behind at his heels. Since the time Bush entered Afghanistan, matters became graver for everybody. The number of Taliban fighters has been fattened; their desire to kill Americans has become stronger; the Americans are being condemned by most of the world and the expense for the war has put a hole in the American economy big enough for a meteor to go through, that put the citizens in a very difficult place and our troops are fighting a losing battle. Our soldiers are not to blame. They have fought and they are still fighting incredibly bravely in horrible conditions.
To make matters worse the top American commander in Afghanistan, Lt General Stanley McChrystal is asking for more troops and Obama is about to become the next fool to enter a war that he can’t win.
It is a pity that the politicians and the high ranking military chiefs don’t have enough sense to review the recently published reports of the Russian war against Afghanistan some years ago. If our Chiefs and Policy Makers would review the nine year long Russian conflict in Afghanistan, would see that the Soviet Union Field Marshall Sergei Akhromeyev, a WWII hero, who was in charge of the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, could not explain why a force of 110,000 well trained and well equipped soldiers were losing ground and lives of men fighting the Afghanistan insurgents.

Russians went in, but lost time, men, money and respect

What are we going to lose?

Let us think for a moment; if President Obama, has as much sense as he professes, should study the reports of the Soviet Union leaders. Something of the utmost importance is written in the recently publicized documents. The Soviet Chief of Defense Nicolai Ogarkov spoke to the Communist Party boss Leonid Brezhnev and warned him against an invasion, but the Communist boss dismissed him and told him to attend military business and to leave policy making to the heads of the party. The soviets heavily bombarded villages and killed innocent civilians but the war was being lost and their withdrawal, which could save lives did not take place, because the party leaders saw it as potentially fatal to their image around the world; so they kept on getting deeper and deeper in mire in their failed occupation. When Mikhail Gorbachev became soviet leader in 1985, he called the Afghanistan situation “bleeding wound” but he didn’t withdraw for the same reason his predecessors had not. He said that ending the war was his top priority, but he couldn’t do it without losing face. The war finally ended four years after Mr. Gorbachev came to power and nine years after it started.
The documents describe in detail the disaster and the battles between military and the civilian leadership. It is all true history which deserves a sincere and a lengthy review by our politicians, who should convince themselves to learn from other fools mistakes.
We are doing the same thing and making the same mistakes as the Russian army had done and lost the war. There isn’t one inch of ground in Afghanistan that our soldiers have not stepped on. They conquer empty villages and dry bushes while the insurgents are spread around the mountains, designing another sneaky attack on the troops and our politicians are playing political games and fighting their battles in the hopes of winning reelections.
According to what I see and have learned, following the war, there is a way out of Afghanistan without Americans losing face, but in fact becoming heroes. I am a novelist and I tend to revise, give color and point out things, which the average eye is looking at but can’t see. I will treat this as a story in one of my novels and see where it will get me.
Sending additional troops to Afghanistan will be a grave mistake and it will cost many lives for both sides and the war will still continue, unless of course we kill all the Taliban, which is impossible. According to world renowned economists, the monetary cost of one soldier staying in Afghanistan for only six months could build 10 schools in Afghanistan. I suggest, we hold back 100 soldiers use that money and build 1,000 schools, then sit back and watch, see and enjoy the changing attitude in the insurgents. Remember Archimedes, the Ancient Greek Physicist said, “If you can move it an inch you can move it a mile”
Please, hear me out when I tell you that not all the insurgents are self sacrificing Taliban. Many have joined the Taliban movement to protect their country and to revenge the American intrusion. Can’t you see that they are patriots? By seeing the building of schools in the country they love, many of these insurgents will abandon their fighting, leave the mountains and will return home to their families.

Let us not create anymore orphans, create schools

Building schools can lead to a brand new world of virtuous development of jobs, the reduction of hate for America, hope for a decent life and stability, where Al Qaeda has no room to live let alone thrive. Education makes it easier for people to follow the right life and makes them better to lead. What kind of a fool am I to sit here, telling you and projecting such bright future? What kind of a fool will I be in the eyes of the world if I’ll tell you that soon after the change of our and their attitude, there will be a day Americans and Afghans will walk the streets of Kabul greeting each other rather than throwing rocks at each other? No, I am not any kind of a fool. It happened in Germany a few years after the war ended, where Americans walked the streets of Frankfurt and were greeted by the Germans. It happened in Vietnam, and Cambodia, which I visit very often; it happened in Greece after the bloody civil war right after WWII; and it has happened in many other countries that the history books can say better than I. It has happened to me. I was a soldier in the American army stationed in West Germany and Czechoslovakia border, sitting behind my gun which was aimed at the Russians across from me, while they were too had their guns pointed at me, and we all waited for some politician to stop drinking his orange juice and freshly brewed coffee and give us the order to shoot and blow each other to smithereens. Thank God, it didn’t happen and now I am sitting in a coffee shop in Thailand having coffee with the Russians that I had in my gun sights. We are laughing now; we are buying coffee and beer for each other as if nothing had happened.
This is not any part of any of my novels; life gives birth to novels; the novels don’t give birth to life.
The conflict in Afghanistan is a war. War is not a polite and recreational event but the vest thing in life. It sometimes looks as the favorite of the idle and frivolous politicians who go at war but not in the war. Napoleon, after the battle in Borodino against the Russians, his troops having killed thousands, he ate, drank and burped loudly and well and said his conscious was clear, because during the battle he never fired one single shot, nor killed anyone.
I know very well that once this idea of building schools is presented to the congress many of the members will laugh loudly, others will giggle, like school girls meeting a fool to take them for ice cream, and some will start their speeches, telling the rest how the Taliban will tear down the schools before they are erected. Well, the speakers will be wrong, because Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea” has now built 39 schools in Afghanistan and over 90 in Pakistan and not one has been burned down or closed and over 50,000 girls are attending schools in Afghanistan. Now, who is the fool, I or the laughing and the giggling congressmen?

Who is the DUMB  ASS, me or Obama?

To show you that I am not a Dumb Ass and my heart is in the right place, I bet anybody “Dollar to Donuts” if they send any more troops there the congress will cry with bitter tears. Any bets? Put your donuts where your mouth is!

Michael Steele says, the war in Afghanistan

is  ”of  Obama’s choosing”