The 18-year U.S. war in Afghanistan has claimed the lives of 139,000 Afghan civilians and combatants, and more than 6,300 U.S. soldiers and mercenaries.
And the carnage in Afghanistan is only getting worse. July 2019 was the deadliest month of the past two years, with 1,500 civilians killed or wounded. During the first half of 2019, nearly 4,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan, and it was primarily the United States that caused most of the civilian deaths in that time period.
Furthermore, the United States has spent over $1 trillion on the war in Afghanistan since the U.S. invasion in 2001.
"Washington was politically defeated in Afghanistan long ago, and no shift in US tactics will change that whether it is a troop surge, the renewed training of local soldiers, or a focus on counterterrorism," Reese Erlich writes at Common Dreams. The U.S. lost because most Afghans see the U.S.A. as an occupying power," he added.
Thus, the only acceptable course of action is a total end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan and reparations for its people.
The United States must withdraw all of its troops, CIA agents and mercenaries and close its military bases in Afghanistan. Moreover, the U.S. government should redirect a significant amount of money toward small international aid groups that can help rebuild the country, as suggested by Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kelly told Erlich, "Reparations should be paid to the Afghan people, not the government."
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