Afghanistan is an unwinnable war

I'd like to add to James Prescott's excellent recent Fencepost letter dealing with the stupidity of our war in Afghanistan where he pointed out that the Russians tried for 10 years from 1979 to 1989 to control Afghanistan and finally after huge losses in men and material gave up and went home.

The British tried twice, in 1839 and 1878, to conquer Afghanistan and failed both times after huge losses.

Both the British and Russians had short supply lines -- the British supplied from nearby India, then part of the British Empire, and Russia, of course, is just next door.

Our supply line is about 7,000 miles long. Other than in Kabul, we haven't hardly made a dent and sending more troops is just wasting more American lives and money because we cannot win there.

As for catching bin Laden, we are no closer now than we've ever been after all these years of trying.

Bin Laden has said over and over that to achieve peace with him and end the terrorism, we merely have to get our military out of sacred Muslim areas such as Saudi Arabia, his homeland.

So why don't we do that and just mind our own business for a change? We have plenty of problems right here to work on and it's not necessary to go all the way to Asia to find some.

I'd send George Bush a history book if I thought he could read.

John Hurley

Palatine