A war without direction or cause

By Annie Rose Ramos

My brother is in Afghanistan. My mother tells our family she always looks to the moon when she is especially missing John because it is the only thing we can share with him at that moment. We have the assurance that he will look up to the same moon as we do, and somehow we are connected.

My brother is in the Office of Naval Intelligence. He signed up for the reserves years ago because he thought it would look good on his resume. He would like to join the Secret Service one day, but never thought he would be sent to war. For him, it was out of sight, out of mind. He continued practicing as a lawyer and occasionally made the mandatory weekend services to the San Diego Naval Base. It was only last year, a time when both my family and I thought that John would be in the clear as far as ever being called into active duty (we thought the United States was trying to slowly extract themselves from the Middle East instead of replenishing their troops), that he received a letter requesting him for active duty in Afghanistan.

I must admit, I consider myself guilty of one of the main problems that plagues American citizens: ignorance. If it were not for my brother's presence in Afghanistan, I would probably still be oblivious to the predominant happenings in the Middle East.

It is unfortunate that we need to be personally invested in this war in order to have an interest in it. In my case, the investment is because of personal relationships. With the example of Haliburton, an oil company making a huge profit, the investment is financial.

The truth is that many Americans' lives are uninterrupted by the battles that we fight across the world and are left completely untouched by them. The wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan have never fully enveloped our nation in spirit or in support. Only now do I realize just how horrible a U.S. war can be when it does not have majority approval. With the disapproval of the majority of citizens, you get what we have today: a war where men and women are dying for an unidentifiable cause.

"Pretty soon it will be year seven of this campaign. The war and politics of this endeavor are starting to get very twisted," my brother wrote in a recent e-mail. There is now a greater sense of urgency in his e-mails, a greater desire to come home, which he repeats frequently throughout his letters, leaving us feeling helpless on the other end.

The reality is that I need to find a cause in this war to believe in. Ultimately, my brother's service could result in serious injury for him, or the loss of his life. I need to believe that he is risking so much for more than the price of oil.

I share my brother's opinion that there needs to be a "shift of focus from the conventional military to a solution that is constructive," a solution where the money is put into rebuilding Afghanistan -- improving schools, roads, hospitals and universities. Likewise, there must be a focus on empowering citizens and eliminating the Taliban, who use fear and torture to keep everyone in peril.

In all honesty, I think my brother's words are the most fitting: "Past civilizations from the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Britain and the United States under the Marshall Plan after World War II painstakingly rebuilt Japan and Germany from the ground up, utilizing architecture to inspire the masses to thrive. It avoided anarchy, provided employment and stimulated the economies both locally and abroad," he wrote.

"Many here, in Afghanistan, live no differently than their ancestors did during biblical times. They live in mudded compounds and sleep with their animals. There is no running water, plumbing or electricity. They cannot read or write, but are easily manipulated by Islam and the jihadist movement, which encourages martyrdom against the infidels, the Americans. As a result, no one individual ever gets a chance to meet the challenge of developing oneself to their full potential. If God is love, then why all the killing?"

There is no easy out for the U.S. in Afghanistan, but we cannot continue to fight this war as we are anymore. Not only are we fighting a war against the Taliban and terrorism, but now the citizens of Afghanistan feel a strong sense of animosity toward our ongoing involvement in their country.

Our soldiers are alone in this war, abandoned because of the politics of it all. They are fighting without the support of other countries or the Afghans. So would coming home really be a defeat, or would it be a victory for everyone involved?

Annie Rose Ramos is a senior English major.