More and more I wish there was a real Uncle Sam so I could grab him by the lapels and demand, “Where the hell are we Going? Are you paying any attention?” Our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan worry the hell out of me, so I have been reading many books about how we got there and what is going on. I’d liked to discuss two of those books today.

“The Forever War,” by New York Times award winner Dexter Filkins, and “The Good Solidiers,”  by Pulitzer Prize winner David Finkel.

Let’s start with “The Forever War.” It deals with Afghanistan from the start of this tragedy.  He tells us we’re dealing with “ill-trained, ill-disciplined, ill-equipped tribesmen whose only asset is an unconquerable fighting spirit  in the warrior tradition.”  Tough bunch of bastards indeed.  They took on Russia, one of the two strongest armies in the world, and sent them home with their tail between their legs, as Mikhail Gorbachev told the people in 1986, “By summer’s end you’ll have to figure out how to defend yourselves, because you’ll be on your own.”  Sound familiar?  Obama is singing the same deadly song today.

What kind of peolple are we fighting for-and-with?  One commander told Filkins, “We know that non-military people will be killed; if they are good Muslims God will reward them as martyers and send them to heaven — if they are bad Muslims God is punishing them at the hands of true believers.”

He was astounded and disgusted as he walked to a local soccer field and saw a crowd sitting in the bleachers watching Taliban enforcers handing out punishment.  He saw a pickpocket thrown to the ground and a sword flashing as it chopped off his hand–which was then raised and thrown to the crowd.  Next he saw a young woman , accused of adultery, stoned to death in front of the crowd. They went on  to do unspeakable things with long spears inserted into rectums. “What do they do to homosexuals?” he asked a man in the crowd. “They tip walls over on them,” was the answer.  When  he asked the man what he thought of all this the man said, “You Americans have television  and movies – we have this.”

Filkin had to learn the difference between a shiite and a sunni, as well as al Qaida and Pashtuns, mujahideens, tajks, uzbecks and dozens of other tribes, gangs, war-lords and mobs roaming the country committing murder, kidnapping, and terror.  At one time the city of Kabul was divided by forty-two different military checkpoints, and you could lose anything from your life to your wrist-watch at each of them.  When more than 40,000 civilians had been killed the people of Afghanistan were ready to accept the Taliban. “Anything is better than what we’ve had.”

Filkin tells of learning about the Taliban militias. “They were dumber than bricks, and you knew they’d as soon kill you as look at you.”  He tells of a warrior who was hit in the eye by shrapnel : “He reached in, pulled the eye out, threw it away – and resumed fighting.”

They made strict rules. Women  must be completely cover when outdoors. Only the eyes could show. They must not wear white socks,  because white drew attention to ankles, and that caused men to have nasty thoughts.

He met a 17-year-old who told him, “It is written in the Koran that we must kill non-believers. There is no end to the jihad. It will go on forever — until doomsday.”

He also found that the warriors fought their battles  like games, often switching sides every few days. War, to them, was like a job.  One man learned that a certain militia had kidnapped and executed his brother.  He went to them to retrieve the body. Before releasing the corpse they made him pay for the two bullets used to kill him.

He saw troops fighnting with World War II rifles, that didn’t even have socks for their feet — but they loved fighnting.

Read “The Forever War” if you want a brilliant explanation of what we are doing in Afghanistan.

To learn about the folly of Iraq, go to “The Good Soldiers,” which follows one platoon of American soliders from the start to the finish of their 14 month-tour in a Baghdad suberb.

David Finkel watched and wrote as the young men (average age 19–but some were only 17)  faced an enemy that amazed them. They were part of “The Surge” which was supposed to make Iraq a peaceful democracy that would be happy to share their oil with us,but he saw  young men  blown to bits by a  cheap $100 IED (improvised explosive device) that destroyed a $115.000 humvee at the same time.

He saw them face death every time they stepped out of the wire to try and help the neighbors. He watched as the youngsters became angry and puzzled by the reaction of the people they were trying to help. Many Iraqis appreciated what was being done for them, but they didn’t dare express gratitude or an insurgent would cut their throat. When one young soldier saw a man and his small daughter standing by the road watching them pass by he smiled and waved at the child, who smiled and waved back — and was rewarded by her father with a smack to the face that knocked her to the ground. The soldier jumped out of his truck, pounded the father in  the face — and thereby created a new anti-American terrorist.

“We’d risk our necks to repair and paint a school house for them, and that night insurgents burnt it to the ground. On  another day a group of children were gathered around the Americans who were helping repair a sewage system. A suicide bomber drove his truck right into the midst of the children  and blew them up.

He  learned that there were so many volunteers as suicide bombers that they had to take a number and go home and wait to be called to their death. During the first five years of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq 900 people gave their lives as suicide bomb terroists.

Americans were told that, “People here need someone tough. A soft man will not be able to govern here. He will need a stick.”

Saddam had a stick and he used it to terrorize the entire country into obedience. Now we’re looking for a new guy with a new stick.

At first when our young troopers were proud to announce when a school, or a gas station, or a public building had been repaired and was now ready for occupancy, folks would come to have a look — and someone would throw a bomb right into the middle. Now our guys don’t announce their successes any more.

The book is painful. It tells you what happens to the human body when it is hit by shrapnel from a mortar, bomb or a bullet. Teeth fly out the back of heads. Brains ooze out ears,  Crying soldiers  bleed heavily as they crawl around trying to find their leg or arm. It’s not like the John Wayne war movies. In this war soldiers scream out in pain and cry in  sorrow. Some throw rocks and kick trucks when  they see a close friend’s body blasted into chunks.  After a few months of death, injury and fear do they say patriotic things and ask for an extension  of their tour? Hell no.  A typical damaged, angry soldier told Finklel, “There ain’t probably one soldier in this fucking country — unless they are higher up and trying to get your star — there ain’t nobody who wants to be here, because there is no point. What are we getting out of fucking being here? Nothing.”

On the final night of their tour, as they awaited the helicopters which would carry them away, they stood in the dark,, staring up at the sky. They had been warned that they might be subject to mortar attacks out there, but they wanted to go home so much they just stood  watching for the freedom birds, and thinking about the 14 dead men and dozens of horribly wounded that weren’t there with them.

Yesterday General Petraeus announced that maybe we’d have to stay in  Iraq a wee bit longer than he promised–and General McChrystal revealed that maybe we would deal with the Taliban after all.

The U.S. spent more than 430 BBBillion dollars in just the first five years of the War on Terror. That’s more than the annual gross domestic product of 89% of the countries in the whole world. It’s costing us a million dollars a year for EVERY soldier we keep over there. We spend more on the military than all other countries combined. We spend more than six times as much as the next in line, China.  And we are the world’s number one exporter of arms, so others can have wars too.

I’d ask Uncle Sam why we have troops in 135 countries around the world.  Why does the Pentgagon own or rent 702 overseas bases? How do you spell military empire?

How can we afford such horrible waste when one in eight Americans is on food stamps — and one in  four children!

Explain it to me Sam. What are we becoming? What did it get us?  The peacful folks of Baghdad, who are supposed to join  hands and govern  themselves in  a few more months, yesterday blew up three hotels and killed a few dozen  people. Do you think we might expect revenge attacks? Afghanistan? It is now the world’s leading exporter of opiates, and their leader (installed by us) is a corrupt thief.

How many more of our kids will be slaughtered, and how much more of our depleted national treasure will go down the rat holes over there?

Where the hell are we going Sam?