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The Price of Peace
You might remember that war Clinton fought against Serbia during the 1990s, with the backing of our NATO allies. After winning, the US and our allies sent in troops to keep the peace in newly liberated countries like Kosovo. Do you ever hear about "insurgents" setting off bombs in Kosovo or other former Serbian countries? Is there a bunch of people camped out in Texas asking that we bring our troops home from Kosovo? No. Maybe that's because, per capita, Kosovo has 24 times as many peacekeeping troops as Afghanistan. And because, per capita, Kosovo is receiving 23 times as much reconstruction aid. We liberated Kosovo through war, and then brought peace. There are an estimated 2,000,000 residents of Kosovo, and 50,000 peacekeeping troops. Iraq's population is 13 times greater than Kosovo's, but the American occupation force in Iraq is less than 3 times larger than Kosovo's. To bring real peace to Afghanistan (population 30 million) and Iraq (population 26 million), based on the Kosovo model, would require 1,400,000 peacekeeping troops. Currently the US has only 499,000 active duty Army troops. Even if you put the entire US Army into Iraq and Afghanistan, and throw in all 700,000 National Guard and Army Reserve troops, you still wouldn't have as many peacekeepers per capita as we've put into Kosovo. The US military simply isn't big enough to bring peace to Afghanistan or Iraq. Our military is only big enough to bring them war. Our ultimate choices are: (1) continue fighting an endless war, (2) reinstate the draft and send over a million ground troops, or (3) withdraw. I choose (3) withdraw. I'll probably write a letter to this effect to my elected representatives soon.
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