Ok, I admit it, I supported the invasion of Afghanistan.

Yes, yes, it's true. I was young and naive, and needed the money. Ok so I didn't get paid to support the war. But I was, at the ripe age of...one..two...10 years old, very afraid because I was living in a peninsula, which meant I would be totally screwed if they(the evil they!) attacked northern florida and I had nowhere to go but Cuba. Dub 43(that is, George W., the 43rd president) convinced me they we needed to employ some god damn offensive defense to save the country and kill the bastards that attacked the twin towers(which I had never heard of before 9/11). I was living in a conservative household at the time, I think my dad had already moved out by then, and I wasn't exposed to anything but FOX and Rush Limbaugh on the radio, so naturally, I was able to mock my classmates with glee "aren't you glad that Gore isn't in office right now?" I showed them.

Now you may be wondering why, eight years after 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Opiumland, I'm bringing this up. One it's because I feel so god damn stupid, knowing that if just not for Afghanistan(I was learning during Iraq, so I wised up really, really quick, so I'm not counting it nah nah!), I would have never supported a war in my lifetime. I also read this brilliant article by John Mueller (http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=418) and I whole heartedly agree with the man. It also helped me come up with this terrible joke.

9/11 terrorist attacks: About $500,000
Money spent on War on Terror: $922965833976*
Destroying America from the inside out: Priceless

I would break down the cost in american vs iraqi/afghan blood, but that's just tasteless and I suck at math.
*Costofwar.com and I don't care if it's wrong by 50%, the number is still staggering.

If you have the time, please read that article, by the way.


Back to the matter at hand, I supported the war. I didn't know the Ruskies had tried this before and I couldn't have pointed it out on a map, but by Captain's Falcon Punch, I wanted to replace the fucking milk in my cereal with Al-Qaeda/Taliban/Muslim/DC Sniper/Anthrax-Maker blood. In other words, I had War Fever. I was soon satiated. We bombed the motherfucking shit(the first time I've used vulgarities and actually felt it was necessary to express what I was trying to say) out of Afghan caves. New fancy words like Daisy Cutters and Bunker Busters were becoming household names. This is America and you can suck my 10 year old dick I would tell an Afghan if I saw him, right before I shot him.

Nowadays, things are a little bit different. If I met an Afghan man I would apologize to him. I would explain that I'm steadfastly against American imperial policies. I would listen to his plight. How we bombed the hospital where his wife was giving birth. Blew up his opium field. Killed his brother. Or maybe he wasn't even directly affected. I would still apologize.

But as the wise and honorable Mr. Jacques(he beat the Obama drum a bit too much for a man who liked to label himself a libertarian on occasion, in my opinion, but such is a public school teacher, plus he'd be crazy not to with crazy liberals like Adam Steinberg in his class)...

what was I talking about?

"Hindsight is 20/20" Jacques would always say, and this is a very true statement. Even if I knew then what I know now, would I have the courage NOT to support the effort to go overseas and destroy every decent aspect of life a person even remotely affiliated to 9/11 had? Sadly, the answer is easily yes, my life, and yours, has been wildly impacted by our foreign policy since 9/11. As history has shown, imperial policy abroad only leads to civil strife domestically, and although I can't quite answer what we should've done(I could try), going to war is never an option in my playbook.


Of course, if people just adhered to the constitution, we wouldn't even be in a situation where something like 9/11 would happen, but you can't change history, only make it.