What About Restrepo?

Another sentinel event in our national decline has slipped below the radar while the country mourns Whitney Houston. American soldiers were disarmed when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta went to Afghanistan to kiss Hamid Karzai's ass.

We have now made the transition to complete Banana Republic. When the Secretary of State can't stand before the troops without worrying about someone taking a shot at him I think it's time to reexamine the mission. It is just another example how this fascist administration views the military. They consider the military as a bunch of useful crazies. Why not have Panetta just show up in the Pope-Mobile? The odds of a soldier going postal are as great as being hit by space-junk. The image of this bureaucrat being afraid of the troops speaks louder than any sound-bite.

Afghanistan is not worth a single American life. "Three Cups Of Tea" aside, we might as well try to rehabilitate the moon. We have announced the date of our surrender so any further casualties are just Obama's political cannon-fodder.

A soldier went berserk, what a surprise. People go nuts and start shooting every other day right here in the USA. At least he didn't throw a Quran in the shredder. You can't separate war from atrocity, and the more pointless the war the more despair that is fermented.

What about Restrepo and the hundreds of other soldiers who have died since Obama declared Afghanistan the right war. What's the message being sent to our soldiers? Panetta is telling them I think you're so crazy that I can't be around you unless you're disarmed. There are good people dying in that cesspool and our esteemed Secretary of Defense is too afraid of being fragged to meet with them.

This soldier's life is over. He will be tried and convicted and probably spend the greater part of his life in prison. We will pay the families restitution that will probably amount to a fifth of the Afghan economy. We will leave in defeat according to schedule after a few hundred more Americans die. The Russians couldn't win in Afghanistan even after killing a fourth of the population.

After we abandon Afghanistan, as we abandoned the Korengal Valley and Outpost Restrepo, who will remember our soldiers languishing in prison and the V.A. Medical Centers? What a difference between Restrepo and Leon Panetta. Don't worry Leon, you're safer with the soldiers than you are in D.C.