R.I.P., Gentlemen, and Thank You for your Service. Your commitment to the security of America is more than valid, and very gratefully acknowledged.
Now, can America quit fighting Wars that only make the World "safe" for Defense Contractors, or for Big Oil ?
Out Soldiers deserve better. Our Nation deserves better.
May we pick better "allies" and "Wars" in the Future.
The insinuation that our government is somehow responsible for these soldiers deaths is absurd and obscene.
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The US needs to get out of the arms business altogether. It's counterproductive. This is just one example of a much larger problem. We are by far the world's largest arms supplier. Then we send soldiers to die, almost all killed with an American weapon.
It's only the arms manufacturers that profit at tax payers expense and at the expense of lost lives of American soldiers. And for what? what have we accomplished.
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Great news for US and Russian small arms manufacturers. And, we wonder how and why these wars continue. Because it is good for the military-industrial complex just like Eisenhower warned us against.
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Trump loudly said he would end all the middle east wars in his first year in office. he lied. he not only didn't bring home the troops, he sent thousands more.
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I'm waiting for the Saudia Arabians we've been training here in the US and only recently stopped, to attack us with our own weapons. In 2001 the Saudia had to steal commercial airplanes to kill us. Then we decided it was OK to train them on our most sophisticated military aircraft. Wait till they turn those on us.
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Never ending war. An entire generation has passed since 9/11. I still don't see terrorists behind every bush. Why haven't they bombed nightclubs, malls, etc? They changed our very way of life. Militarized police forces. Exponential jingoism. Propaganda expounded. This country is toast.
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And we are still in Afghanistan for. . . what reason? So we don't have to fight the terrorists in New Jersey?
Reminds me of the rationale used in justifying our escalation in Vietnam. We were fighting them there so the Vietnamese Navy would not be able to sail its 5 junks into Pearl Harbor.
This is beyond unconscionable. Beyond ridiculous, Beyond tragic. At this stage of the game, fighting terrorism is more of a police function than a military one. We need to get our soldiers out of the Middle East. Now.
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Why is a weapon referred to as a machine gun suddenly called a rifle near the end of the article? They are not the same.
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It's Regular Army Men like these two that are the "back bone" of our defense!
Men like these make it possible for you and yours to be safe and sound.
If not for Men/Women like these two there would be a Military Draft.
Remember these two Men!
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Two good young men gone for nothing. Should not have happened because after nearly twenty years in that god-forsaken hell hole not one thing has changed, and we should not have put them there. I do not think that it’s matters one whit what happens in Afghanistan in the future. The English tried, the Russians tried, we tried, each for differing reasons but all have failed. It’s beyond time to leave them to their ignorance because time has shown to me that it is not even close to being necessary. Let’s do this one thing and leave. I think their loss as well as all of the other Americans lost in this region is so very sad. We lost the best with these guys.
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Sad and completely avoidable!
Can we please cancel the Romper Room in DC and send some adults to take charge!
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I hope someone notices that these two fine men who died in the service of their country were both of Hispanic descent, not of Bavarian/British Isles descent. Their roots in this country were also centuries deeper than Trump's, the Kochs, or the DeVos's. If we are going to prohibit entry by Latin Americans, let's see more enlistments by the likes of Trump and his ilk, whose backs are still damp.
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Thank you for your service Sergeants Gutierrez and Rodriguez.
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Trump is at fault! I thought he was going to better vet these troops? What happened! There was plenty of warning! I guess he was lying to us!
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Two American soldiers are killed and what is our response? How does this compare to the killing of an American contractor?
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What a heartbreaking news. I hope that, ultimately, the Afghanistan War will have helped us understand what military power can and cannot do abroad. RIP American servicemen.
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You have to stretch your mind extremely far to rationalize how the world’s, perhaps history’s, greatest military force can not subdue a third world country.
It’s even harder for Americans to admit that the US never really intended to win the war in Afghanistan. The US government could have easily destroyed the source of money, the Afghan poppy fields, that fueled both the Taliban and ISIS.
Didn’t happen. So the American government and military not only looked away from the source of money used to kill our soldiers, they actually gave weapons to people who turned out to be our enemies.
It is a horror for any parent to lose a child, but a much bigger horror to learn that your own government was complicit in it.
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I still feel the mission should continue. The progress made by Afghan women would take a setback if the government were overthrown.
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@Vernon It’s well past time for the Afghans to help themselves. They have to find a way to live with the Taliban. Maybe help bring them into the 21st century.
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These men weren’t even 10 years old when the war in Afghanistan started.
My daughter is about to turn four.
Mr. Trump, I will not allow her classmates to still be drawn into this war a decade and a half from now! End this madness, or President Gabbard or Sanders WILL!
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My heart aches for our brave military members that are killed or injured in this never ending war.
Staff Sgt. Javier J. Gutierrez, and Staff Sgt. Antonio R. Rodriguez, my heart is broken for your families, you are the best of the best. To their parents, you raised fine men and you should be proud. I send my love.
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If USA is going to continue pumping war tech into this part of the world, you should really look into planned obsolescence.
Like a pair of night vision goggles with several key components that will fail in ~ 18 months or so.
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The insider attacks are indicative that Afghanistan is not going to be a peaceful and stable country if we leave, it’s going to descend into anarchy and contribute to violence across the planet as it did on September 11, 2001. We will have to go back.
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Too many of our soldiers have died already. The real problem, is withdrawing 13,000 troops without the Taliban murdering them as they leave.
Infamously, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, a retreat from from Kabul in 1842, resulted in the total (save one man) massacre of a British force of over 16,000. Given the terrain of Afghanistan, preventing that type of event, is very difficult.
The British failed to conquer Afghanistan 5 times, and the Russians have failed 3 times. We are nearing the end of our first, and hopefully last, attempt. At this point, getting our men out alive would be considered to be a victory.
What if the Russians go in? Good. Putin deserves it, but it may not happen, since Putin came into office as a result of the last Russian failure. Like Trump, Putin's sins are many, and far from venial, but he actually knows things.
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I hope you didn’t actually mean you hope the Russians go in. I am married to an Afghan whose family fled Afghanistan due to the Russian invasion. The Afghans suffered immeasurably during the war with Russia, with at least 1 million civilians killed. The Soviets dropped mines designed to look like toys so children would pick them up. To say it would be a good thing if the Russians went back in is an awful idea to contemplate.
The country has suffered immensely since the Communists came to power in 1973. I was hopeful that the U.S. defeat of the Taliban would help the country get back on its feet, but we took our eye off the ball by invading Iraq. Had we not done that, Afghanistan would likely be in a much better place as the Taliban would likely have had a much harder time regenerating. I grieve for the families of Staff Sgt. Gutierrez and Staff Sgt. Rodriguez but I also do not want their sacrifice to be in vain. If America is going to use its military power, it must also accept the responsibility that comes with that.
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@Dsw
No, of course not. I was making a rhetorical point, about the likely hood of Russia rushing back into Afghanistan after we leave.
I don't that any thinking person would favor any nations army going into Afghanistan. As you have pointed out, terrible suffering on the part of both the Peoples of Afghanistan, and the forces of the invader, will the result.
Some might argue that foreign forces have gone into Afghanistan to resolve civil wars, or remove outside elements. I consider that to be a bogus argument - intervention creates misery, not peace.
The 9/11 attackers did their mission training in a school in Florida, not in Afghanistan.
Let's all hope, that no nation, repeats the same terrible error, that has already blighted Afghanistan 9 times. Especially ours.
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@Peter Zenger : Had CIA not supplied arms to Taliban, Russians would have subdued Afghanistan. Yes it is difficult terrain, but it is very possible.
The very fact that the military is profligate with the over abundant supply of weapons it has is one reason we should be cutting their budget instead of increasing it drastically while cutting those programs that actually do benefit this country. And its not just the rifles, machine guns etc. I remember a few year back seeing photos of ruined fighter jets that were destroyed by a hurricane that hit the Florida panhandle. The jets couldn't be flown out ahead of the storm because they were not in working condition! And they shouldn't have been stored in a place like that in the first place, but then most decisions about military bases and their location has more to do with politics than intelligence.
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We've been in Afghanistan for 18 years - twice as long as the Soviets.
The Taliban offered to turn binLaden over to us after 9/11 if the US could provide proof of his involvement. We invaded instead.
BinLaden has been dead for some time. Can someone please explain why we're still there?
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@cynicalskeptic It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear..
One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda.
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor - with the cry of grave national emergency.
The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
==================
General Douglas MacArthur
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This situation is very sad and underscores the importance of our letting the Afghans seek their own destiny without our local participation. Too many coalition fighters have been killed by "friendly fire" to justify continuing our participation. If the Afghans want to control their destiny, they will need to fight for it without our help. Enough is enough.
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Lest we forget....this isn't the first time.
During the 1980's, the U.S. directly and indirectly supported Iraq's war against Iran - support that included providing different types of weapons. Unused weaponry from that war was stored in bunkers throughout Iraq, and in the summer of 2003 I saw several of these weapons-filled bunkers on the outskirts of what then still called the Saddam Hussein International Airport.
It is well known now that American/Allied forces unfortunately left many of those bunkers unguarded during our 2003 invasion of Iraq, and weapons were looted from unguarded bunkers. Some of those looted weapons were used to make IED's that killed Americans and our allies.
An inconvenient truth conveniently ignored by our political and military leaders.
One last comment: the incompetency of Pentagon leadership during the first year of that war was astounding, and it doesn't seem to have improved much since then.
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Rest In Peace Staff Sgt. Gutierrez and Staff Sgt. Rodriguez, May god grant your loved ones strength and help them during these painful times.
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To the Families of these fine young, honorable Men:
You have my greatest sympathy and respect. Words cannot adequately express what you have lost, only those that have suffered great loss themselves can begin to comprehend your anguish. My Brother Died while serving in the US Army, many years ago. I won’t say it becomes easier, but day by day, it does become less incomprehensible. Enjoy the good memories, spend as much time with your extended Families as possible, and use the services offered to you by the Military.
Many, many people are thinking about your loved ones today. Hopefully less of our own will be in harms way soon, but today is not the day to discuss Politics. My very sincere best wishes.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
Amen, our hearts are indeed broken for your families . Words are so terribly inadequate, we pray that you continue to open your hearts to God as only he provides the emotional ,spiritual support to deal with the sudden lost of loved ones The pain is so unbearable to handle without Gods guiding love.
Please accept the outpouring of strangers love and respect for these brave men
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@Phyliss Dalmatian Those who send other's children to war, MUST also offer up their children for same role. Congress. POTUS. especially. No spurs. No academic waivers. Even health waivers must involve service in non-combat roles IN war zones.
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@Tamza: Every time either house of Congress votes to go to war, EVERY draft-age child of every such voter should be immediately drafted and sent into combat. Let Representatives and Senators welcome their children home in boxes, if they are so eager for war.
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