As Afghan Soldier Kills 2 Americans, Peace Talks Forge Ahead

I vividly remember how I felt when two of my sons were serving in Iraq. They both came back safely and I will be eternally grateful for that. I would imagine what could happen and I couldn't stop the fear and dread. This was nothing compared to what these families are now feeling. Saying my heart goes out to them doesn't seem enough. I am so terribly sorry for their anguish and loss. I wish I could wrap my arms around them and tell them their loved ones died for a good cause. To find out that it was by an Afghan soldier is sickening. How can we help people that are killing our troops, surely it's time to bring our families home.

When you have to organize and dedicate your own forces to protect yourself from the supposedly 'friends' you work with in a foreign country you claim you're not invading, you know that's time to leave... even after 19 years on the try...

It is not particularly comforting to see one's husband posthumously promoted nor to see Mr. Trump watch their bodies being brought back to this country. My own husband was posthumously promoted when he died during the Vietnam era. The only practical good that did was slightly raise the amount of VA benefits our children received. They were still without a father at the ripe old ages of 2 and 6. I wish the widows and the children well.

The American government - with tax money - paid for the Afghan's salary and machine gun so he could kill our own. Insanity. We will eventually leave Afghanistan and, like Vietnam, the rebels will then months or years later will win the country over through force. All this death and money will be for naught. Let that sink in.

Going back 3,000 years, who has ever successfully invaded and occupied Afghanistan?

How many more of our parents, sons and daughters are we going to lose through debacles like this, while their lives are uselessly taken, in a country which has remained almost totally corrupt and unable to function for decades? There is another alternative: What our country could use and needs, is reasonably paid national service, including but not limited to all types, and not just military, for two years, in our country for everyone, for the benefit of our country, immediately after high school. Thereafter, they would mature, and they can do whatever else they want to do for the rest of their lives. NO EXCEPTIONS FOR ALL, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO Federal,State and Local Governments, especially including THEIR EXECUTIVES, LEGISLATURES AND JUDICIARIES !

This whole debacle is the result of utter incompetence of the American war managers and Trump, given his total lack of experience and aspiration as a statesman, has just made it worse. He is almost literally headed to hand over Kabul to Taliban, the continued sworn enemy of America, and what would then await America is another September 11 of 2001. America's decadent democracy is such that it has elected someone like Trump as its president who neither understands America's responsibility to the rest of the world nor is interested in learning. Due to Trump what awaits the world is total anarchy, and America will find itself bereft of all that power and prestige it once represented. Therefore, to make sure that you do not have another Trump in 2020, America must go for the parliamentary form of democracy under which someone like Trump will never be able to make it to the Oval Office.

Bring our boys home,already. Absolutely nothing good has ever come out of this quagmire.

Trump nearly started war with Iran (enemy) over the killing of an American contractor, but repeatedly overlooks the slaughter of our military by Afghans (alleged ally). The Taliban have his number: a weak president so desperate for any kind of big-splash success on the world stage -anything at all so he can claim to have ended an endless war or brought Iran to its knees - that he prioritizes a mercenary businessman (not judging) over our enlisted personnel. Given this, expect him to settle for winding the clock all the way back to 1999: religious brutalism, disfigured young women, and jihad headquarters (with funding from our other fine ally, Saudi Arabia). Could anyone get it wrong-er than this?

I am really having a problem comprehending what is going on. The American Government is negotiating with Taliban to withdraw and peace accord after 19 years of fighting with no win. The Taliban negotiators panel have four formal Gitmo prisoners. At the same time the US forces are training and arming Afghans soldiers to kill Taliban Insurgents. When one Afghan soldier gone crazy all the others became enemies. Scratch your head please!

Afghan women should have a greater role in government to make sure that their progress is not imperiled after a US withdrawal.

Bring back the drafting of all Americans upon reaching the age of 19. Mandatory service of 18 months civilian or military. Us cozy white middle and upper middle class included. Only then will our moral responsibility to participate in our government return.

Another 2 Americans pay the ultimate price for the lies and failures of 3 administrations. Unless the next deployment to Afghanistan is made up of people named bush, Obama, trump and members of Congress families we should leave. We can’t save that place. The price being born by regular families (as usual) is something the 95% of us who don’t even know anyone in the military should be ashamed of. Saying “thank you for your service “ rings very hollow.

Sounds familiar: Donald Trump kills the Republican Party and several years later all Republicans think there’s nothing more important than re-electing him. Just a note: there has never been a declared Afghanistan war. Congress has never declared war as the Constitution requires for a war. All the deaths, all the ruined lives, all the destruction, all the money - all can be laid at the feet of the various occupants of the White House since the initial bombing and invasion (and the multitudes in Congress over those years) who initiated this disaster and allowed it to continue for a generation.

Sergeant Gutierrez and Sergeant Rodriguez were "just boys" in 2001 when the war began while Sergeant Jawed, their killer, was a "toddler." Maybe War should go back to being an Avocation instead of Career-Occupations. Time to try raising our children in peace and let other people do the same. The only connection to the President in this story is whether he will bury or spin it to his political and economic advantage. The President has already thoroughly demonstrated his scorn for those in uniform who dare to question any of his assertions regardless of merit. Prayers of thanks and safety for all who serve. Prayers of condolences and comfort as well as gratitude to all who have lost.

So after 19 years and thousands of civilians murdered, largely by the US government, the Taliban is still in power. Thanks, G W Bush and the congressional majority who backed him, and the two presidents and administrations that followed them, for this massive, ongoing war crime that accomplished absolutely nothing.

We should no longer be in Afghanistan. These incidents are the side effect of running a war like an occupation. We all know the response to 9/11 should have been concentrated in Afghanistan instead of being used to enter Iraq and then Afghanistan. The United States made the consummate failed decision to fight a war on two fronts. Our leadership failed to know the history in Afghanistan and was too greedy to ignore the opportunity to enter Iraq and what that decision would do to our economy and our efforts to rectify the bad situation in Afghanistan. Now we want to make a deal with the Taliban, a group of people that relegate women's rights to second class citizenship whose very lives and education will depend on the decisions of a group whose past record toward women can best be described as hateful. I don't know how we get out, but I don't think a deal with the Taliban is the right way to leave.

It should be noted that the two American soldiers murdered were Latinos. They or their forbearers certainly were immigrants at one time. The immigrants this administration is so strenuously, cruelly and expensively trying to keep out of this country.