LET POPPIES GROW; BRING TROOPS HOME

August was the deadliest month ever for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Yet press releases this week bragged that U.S. and NATO soldiers have
reduced the opium poppies being raised there to make the drug heroin.

That's poppycock!

We properly invaded Afghanistan eight years ago to try to get Osama
bin Laden after he engineered the 9/11 attack. He got away to Pakistan.

So, instead of going after him there as we should have, we shifted our
troops to Iraq because President George W. Bush wanted to get Saddam
Hussein. He did.

Now, with an agreement to get out of Iraq, we're shifting more troops
back to Afghanistan.

Afghans are unstable, ungovernable and unconquerable. Great Britain
tried it in the 19th century and failed. The Soviet Union (now Russia)
tried in the 20th century and failed. We will fail now.

The solution is to let Afghans grow their poppies and get
out.

If you're not sure, here are facts about our Iraq-Afghanistan
misadventure.

. We have lost 4,340 military lives in Iraq.

. We have lost 738 in Afghanistan, 51 in August.

The Iraq fiasco is Bush's biggest blunder. Unless he gets it and gets
out, Afghanistan will be President Obama's albatross.

The lesson we all should learn is bigger than Vietnam, Iraq or
Afghanistan. The world has many countries where leaders (and many
people) really don't understand or want democracy. Hopefully, more
will get it.

But to risk the lives of our military men and women to teach them
about it is hopeless nonsense. We should keep our troops at home to
protect us from disaster here, rather than send them on silly
misadventures abroad.