Social Disconnect

Dear Senator Boxer:

To remind you of what occurred in Afghanistan last week, President Hamid Karzai pardoned Guinaz, a 19-year-old woman, victim of rape, who has been incarcerated since “her crime” and has borne the child of the rapist while in prison. The victim was imprisoned, not the rapist, because she had sex out of wedlock. Meanwhile, the condition of the pardon is that both Guinez and her attacker agree to marry---each other.

The separation in social mores between this society and ours cannot be described in a short letter. Yet we expend our national treasure in prestige, lives and wealth to support this government against attack from its own people. You may contest that the Taliban would treat its women even more harshly; but that is their affair, Ma’am, not ours. The responsibility for THIS government is ours. We have no more legitimate authority over the progress or process of this society than we had authority over the Vietnamese people, 50 years ago, while we proceeded to destroy their country. These people will transform their society on their schedule, not on ours.

You, my government, tell us our mission is succeeding, as you told us 50 years ago that the struggle in Vietnam was succeeding. Our proposed success lies merely in driving our “enemies” under ground---awaiting our departure. In the meantime, large numbers of those who collude with the proxy government that we have put in place are executed for their treason. This is madness.

Your other excuse for our commitment, that we confront terror on their soil, is equally lame. Our military presence in that part of the world incites their passionate, selfless commitment to attack us. Our military presence there also drives Iran toward the nuclear option, which is their only assurance that we will not attack them. After we depart, they will return to squabbling among themselves.

I beg you: Stop this insanity. Bring all of our troops home immediately. We have plenty of egregious problems to address here at home. Our national treasure will be much more effective in the form of goodwill and war reparations.