President Obama is taking the Bush administration’s foreign policy to the logical next step in Afghanistan. America has issued an explicit announcement of an impending strike, including the exact location of where our troops will be deployed, in an outrageous yet unsurprising act of self-sacrifice. According to Voice of America, and this is being widely reported, the U.S. will attack the Taliban at Marjah in the southern region of Afghanistan, following a public campaign to notify the enemy and civilians of our planned troop positions. The purpose of the announcement, according to commanding General Stanley McChrystal, (acting under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan), is to prevent the loss of civilian life. The general apparently thinks the advance notification will lead to the Taliban abandoning Marjah without resistance. Unless there has been a secret war and the general knows more than he’s saying, this policy is an explicit statement that the lives of our soldiers are of lesser value than the lives of others. Whatever happens at Marjah, the largest combat operation since President Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in December, the offensive is based on pure altruism, the idea that everyone else whether civilians or enemy combatants, matters but you don’t, and Marjah is pre-set as an elaborate deathtrap for American soldiers. Those of us (including me), who considered supporting candidate Obama because he promised to pull troops out of Iraq and act in America’s self-interest, take note: he is advancing the Bush policy of sacrifice as our national military defense purpose, only without the pretense of actually fighting the enemy.
Not everyone in the military accepts self-sacrifice as his moral purpose. One young soldier, Carl Bjork, who is being persecuted by the Obama administration (he is facing a court-martial for doing his job), is fighting back: visit his family’s Web site, Support Captain Carl Bjork, to learn more about his cause and how to help (hat tip: Dr. John David Lewis). In the meantime, his fellow soldiers are marching into a deathtrap at Marjah…
