Opinion: Leaving the Middle East

Well, after 20 years, the U.S. is finally pulling out of Afghanistan. Thus far our country has spent at least $6.4 Trillion on war in the Middle East and Asia since 2001, according to CNBC. The war in Truck-muck-a-stan has cost the lives of 4,431 service members and wounded 31,994 more according to the not always reliable Wikipedia. Calling a region in the Middle East Truckmuckastan, is no-doubt seriously politically incorrect. In my head I call it something much worse than that.

Imagine, if you can, that the war money had been spent on aging U.S. infrastructure including school buildings that are in desperate need of renovation.

While I am not really that political it seems to me that the skinny old white guys who typically run things are not happy unless we are at war.

I believe the original mission in the Middle East was to get those responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

We’ve been told that in May of 2011 US Forces, specifically Navy Seals of the U.S. Navy Special Warfare Development Group, killed Osama Bin Laden at his compound at Abbottabad Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

It took 10 years to track him down and take him out. And yet 10 years later we are still funding a war when projects in this country desperately need that money.

President Joe Biden said it was highly unlikely the Taliban would takeover Kabul, Afghanistan when U.S. forces were withdrawn. He is being criticized by both sides of the aisle along with the conservative and liberal media for those unrealistic expectations.

According to the Wall Street Journal world leaders must step up to protect the civil rights of girls and women under the Taliban rule. The misogynist sect has long prohibited the women of their culture to work outside the home, required they cover their faces in public, leave the home only with a family male escort and forbid education to girls after the age of 8 years.

Women who broke those rules were subjected to humiliation, public beatings and in some cases execution by the group’s religious police under its strict interpretation of Islamic law or Sharia law, said the WSJ.

It is hard for this western woman to envision the threats that our sisters in the Middle East are subjected to. I’m sure I would last an hour under Sharia law.

When saying my prayers, I thank God I wasn’t born in the Middle East. I am a spoiled American woman. I also pray for the safety of those women who have to live in a society where their worth is under-valued. The very men who are suppose to protect them, fathers, brothers and cousins are just as apt to persecute them for daring to be born female.

I admit to not being an expert on international politics. I fear we will never achieve worldwide peace unless we are invaded by aliens from another planet. That may mean I read and watch way too much science fiction, but that is what I believe. Before I sign off for this week, I want to add that when our planet is invaded by hostile aliens, I hope my neighbors possess high power assault weapons to protect us.

Have a blessed weekend.

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Readers may contact Tami Jo Nix by emailing tamijonix@gmail.com or following @TamiJoNix on Twitter.