Enough is Enough

Six dead US servicemen. 30 dead Afghan civilians. US flag burnings. Rioting. Stone throwing. Cars and buildings burned and destroyed. Roving mobs of protesters. The head of US troops in Afghanistan, US Marine General John Allen, US Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, and the US President have made repeated apologies, and the rioting continues, now entering its third week while the unstable and allegedly corrupt Afghani government of Hamid Karzi looks on; either powerless to stop it, or simply unwilling to do so. Enough is enough.

Look, we're sorry. No one ever intended to slight or insult Islam or the Afghan People. There were five US servicemen and one Afghan advisor who were instructed to dispose of material at the Parwan Detention Center. Typically military protocol is that you burn all paper products. They screwed up. They apologized. The head of US ground forces in the region, General Allen, apologized and promised the appropriate "punishment" (and when a Marine says he's going to do something, it gets done...pronto). That's what civilized people do. That's what supposed allies do. They accept responsibility and do something about it. Do you think that the US and Britain haven't accidentally stepped on each other's toes over the decades? Neither has murdered anyone; or looted anything; or burn buildings and cars. It's really time to knock it off.

We went to Afghanistan at the request Afghan People; not as conquerors did in the past, but as liberators. Sure, we were going after Bin Laden and his group of lunatics anyway, but that didn't require committing massive qualities of American material and manpower. However, it was the Afghan People who asked us to liberate them from the brutal and backwards Al Qaida and Taliban. Remember them? They were the ones throwing acid in the faces of your daughters who wanted to go to school. They were also the ones beating your wives and daughters with cane sticks for not following their version of the Islam while you did nothing. They were the ones who deprived you of modern technology and medicine. By the way, how did you like living in the Stone Age?

And something else Afghanis, we helped secure your freedom from the invading Russians, or did you forget that? We've built schools, roads, hospitals. We've helped you rebuild your infrastructure from the ground up...literally. We helped you form a new government of you choosing. To paraphrase our Benjamin Franklin, it's up to you to keep it or lose it. And from what I've seen over the past two weeks, maybe the Taliban weren't so bad after all. But, you see, Americans don't do that. We believe in peacefully protesting. We believe in peacefully challenging our elected officials, not murdering people and destroying property. When you burned our Bible, you don't see the same inbreed behavior did you? You don't see us freaking out when you burn our flag (although it makes us just as mad as you were. I think the two word combination where is "civilized restraint". Look it up if you all haven't burn all the dictionaries.

Now, what are you planning on doing about the six murdered US servicemen? How's that criminal investigation going? Any arrests? Same questions about the murdered Afghanis. Who's responsible for the destroyed property? Who's paying for that? I suspect the answer is "nobody", which is what most of the world now expects.

Now it's time for us to go. We did all you asked of us and much much more. We're not looking for any praise or even "thank you for saving our collective tuckus". I guess it's just what a freedom loving people with the greatest men and women in uniform do. We would, however, hope you stop killing people and breaking things. It's like watching a nation throwing some sort of collective three year old temper tantrum. If you want to remain medieval, that's fine; it's your business. But you keep biting the hand of the people who've repeatedly saved your country on your behalf, and we may decide to leave you to your collective fate next time, which would be a terrible loss to the world. Your call.