Skip to main content

It's Time to End the War in Afghanistan - Not Privatize it for Corporate Profit

This is from Representative Nolan's weekly letter. I agree completely:

Dear Mr. King, 
After almost 17 years, it’s time to bring American troops home from Afghanistan and put an end the longest war in our Nation’s history. The Founders established America’s military for our own national defense – not as a force to be spread around the world propping up corrupt dictatorships under the guise of fighting terrorism. And not to be deployed anywhere without the consent of Congress, a clear definition of “victory,” and a strategy for achieving it. 

What’s more, it’s time for the President to flatly and permanently reject a reckless plan he is reportedly considering to privatize the Afghan conflict, and turn the U.S role over to billionaire war profiteer Erik Prince, 6000 mercenary fighters, and a 90 plane private air force paid for with American taxpayer dollars. As bad ideas go, this one sits at or near the top of the list. 

First and foremost, it would be immoral and wrong for our Nation to ever support or be involved in a war waged solely for private profit – where those in charge only make money by perpetuating an endless conflict at a cost of tens of thousands of civilian lives and terrible destruction. That’s not who we are as Americans. 

And to be clear, no private contractor should ever be permitted to make national security decisions for the United States, either at home or abroad. Yet under Prince’s plan, the President would appoint a special “envoy” to command the operation and somehow rally the Afghan people and their army to defeat the Taliban and end Afghanistan’s civil war. If we have learned nothing else from endless wars of choice in the Middle East that will, according to credible estimates, cost our Nation nearly $16 trillion over the next three decades, along with thousands of precious lives, it’s that civil wars can’t be settled by outside forces. 

Last but far from least, an unchecked private army, supported by the U.S. and let loose in Afghanistan, would be far more likely to exploit local resources and cause needless loss of civilian lives to run up the profits. The result would be even more hostility toward America, with more young people encouraged to join the Taliban and other terrorist groups. Congress must not and cannot permit this to happen. 
We will keep you posted as events proceed. Meanwhile, I want to hear your thoughts. Feel free to contact any of our offices listed below or send me an email.
Sincerely, 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Senator Gazelka: Prepare for End Times

Review by John King “Marketplace Ministers are part of how the Lord will reach the peoples of the earth in these last days.” Author Paul Gazelka wrote this astonishing sentence near the conclusion of his 2003 book, Marketplace Ministers , but it is a good place to start here because it so neatly encapsulates the message of the book which is that business people, by spreading the Gospel, are in a unique position to prepare us, for the end of the world.   Gazelka, an insurance salesman in Baxter, Minnesota, devotes chapters one through four to the story of his religious calling and how he came to adopt the “marketplace” as his personal ministry.  He goes to some length, relying in part on the “Fivefold Path” from Ephesians to convince the reader that the marketplace is a legitimate pulpit to spread the Word.  The remainder of the book, using personal anecdotes and biblical passages, he explains how a marketplace ministry would function and what its usefulness w...

Super-emitting frequent fliers responsible for 50% of aviation CO2

U.S. airlines received a $15 billion subsidy in December’s COVID relief package. The subsidy was for the companies to re-employ thousands of their furloughed employees and keep them on the payroll until at least the end of the first quarter of this year. Congress, and the President, attached no other strings to the huge subsidy, even though airlines social costs, in terms of climate disruption, are huge. In 2018 airlines produced a billion tons of CO2 and benefited from a $100 billion subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused, a report published in the November 2020 journal Global Environmental Change, pointed out. The report, summarized in The Guardian on November 17th, drew together data to provide a global picture of the impact of frequent fliers. The conclusion reached by the study’s authors, led by Stefan Gössling at Linnaeus University in Sweden, is that a tiny fraction of the global population benefits from the highly subsidized airline industry while the rest...

Step aside Republicans; Minnesotans want electric vehicles

Late last month Senator Paul Gazelka, the Republican leader of the Senate, told the Minnesota Reformer that the Republican controlled Senate would likely fire the acting Commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Laura Bishop, if the Agency, at the behest of the Governor, went ahead with the Clean Car Rule. The rule would require automakers to increase the number of electric vehicles they deliver to Minnesota auto dealers. Gazelka told The Reformer that he’d had “a conversation” with Bishop about the rule. Bishop has not been confirmed by the Senate. Gazelka, and his Republican colleagues, claim that electric vehicles are too expensive and that the rule would be a burden to Minnesotans. Gazelka, and the rest of his Party are wrong. They aren’t paying attention to the economics of EV ownership and they are not paying attention to consumer preferences. Way back in September 2019, Consumer Reports reported on a study of Minnesotans they had done in collaboration with the...