Iraq War paraplegic Thomas Young, the focal point of the 2008 documentary Body of War, has decided to commit suicide by stopping eating and has written a letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who as President and Vice President took the country to war with Iraq, blaming them for having fought a war which was militarily and economically a failure. The letter also blames them for the many deaths and injuries that took place there. While the US invasion of Iraq is over, its adventure in Afghanistan is not. It should be noted that the supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction and alleged Al-Qaeda links in Iraq have been proved false.
That the war in Afghanistan has harmed the USA more than it has benefited it, can be seen from the fact that it has cost the USA heavily in both lives and money, but this has not made US citizens safer. Like the Iraq war, the USA has lost the war in Afghanistan, having also failed there to achieve its objectives. Even though the USA brought full pressure to bear on Afghanistan, including its ravaging of Pakistan’s tribal areas and also of both its military and its economy, it has failed to make the proud Afghan people accept either its occupation, or the regime it has imposed.
What has become clear to American policymakers, even though Bush’s successor, President Obama, has begun his second term, that the USA has been beaten in Iraq, is now being brought into the open by such efforts as that of Mr Young. It should also inform policymakers in Pakistan. Pakistani citizens keep paying greater cost in blood than any other country in the world, while the USA builds up India in Afghanistan, even though it has no legitimate interest there, as well as the rest of the region, even though it will not address its problems with its neighbours, most notably the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan.