Last week, I addressed the growing consensus that Afghanistan has become our 21st century Vietnam. If you agree, then please send this letter to your senators and representatives:
Dear _________,
I am writing to urge you to speak out forcefully against extending the Afghanistan war through 2014 and to hold President Obama to his promise to begin a withdrawal of US troops in July of 2011.
The war in Afghanistan isn’t making Americans safer. We would be better off focusing on policing and intelligence to deal with terrorists and using diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid to help stabilize Afghanistan.
We can’t afford the loss of lives and dollars that would come with continuing this war, and I don’t want my tax dollars supporting a war that isn’t in our national interest.
I urge you to take advantage of every opportunity to speak out on this through opinion pieces, press releases, floor statements, media appearances and dear colleague letters. Please let me know what action you will take.
Click here to send the letter. I encourage you customize your message – even one sentence explaining your personal thoughts can make your statement all the more effective.
Some more food for thought from Derrick Crowe, Political Director of the Brave New Foundation:
The president doesn’t need to wait until next July to start pulling out troops. He should start withdrawals today, this afternoon, before dinner. He should drag generals by the four-starred shirt to the radios to give the signal if that’s what it takes. He should admit that our national interest isn’t served by throwing a 100,000-plus-troop war machine at a dirt-poor country to catch fewer than 100 nutcases. We should be in the White House’s face, in the Pentagon’s face, every day, telling them that we won’t tolerate mealy-mouthed dithering on “conditions” while our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers get ground into record numbers of amputees and coffin-filler.
And we should make damn sure they know we won’t sit around and watch while they drag kids too young to really remember how they felt on September 11, 2001, into a war that we’re too proud to admit is a failure.
It’s not working. It’s not going to work. It’s over. Shut it down. Bring them home.
Shalom Rav 
Thank You
Bring home the troops? My husband is there and we discuss the frequently.
The US can’t bring them home. There is nothing here to bring them home to.
There aren’t enough jobs with livable wages for them to fill in civilian life. There are not adequate resources to provide them with medical and/or psychological care if they were all to come home. By resources, I mean not only facilities and care providers, but $$$ to pay for them.
No, the troops are not coming home enmasse any time soon. They are in exile, essentially, until the country can afford them here. Do not forget that it is not only the military personnel there. There are a large number of people working in non-military support services, providing services of all sorts there. They can’t afford to leave there either.
This is not about ideology, fighting terrorism, or freeing the Afghanis from the Taliban. It is about money. There is too much money being made there, and too little of it to bring them home.
Shabbat Shalom