Afghanistan:
The Endless U.S. War

Jun 20, 2011

At the end of May a coalition of 178 liberal Democrats and 26 very conservative Republicans with ties to the Tea Party voted in the House of Representatives to require President Obama to come up with a time table to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Two weeks later, 24 Democrats and one Republican in the U.S. Senate sent a letter to President Obama urging him to begin a major U.S. drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Of course, both actions in the House and Senate are little more than token gestures–engineered to allow politicians from both parties to appear to oppose the continuing U.S. war in Afghanistan, at a time when an overwhelming majority in this country oppose the U.S. war. A CBS News poll in early June showed that a whopping 73% of Americans believe the U.S. should largely get out of Afghanistan by this summer.

But there are no signs that after 10 years of war, U.S. political leaders are planning anything of the sort. There are currently 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, as well as an equal number of CIA, State Department, private military contractors and other hired killers, operating in the shadows.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Patraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, came out in opposition to any substantial drawdown of U.S. troop until the eve of the 2012 elections. Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, said that any substantial withdrawal of U.S. forces would have “disastrous consequences.”

The 10-year old U.S. war and military occupation of Afghanistan has been an unmitigated disaster, creating ever more death and destruction. Despite the usual claims by the U.S. government about supposed “progress” in the war, the United Nations announced that May was the deadliest month for Afghan civilians since it began keeping count in 2007. This is the progress U.S. forces are notching up–more dead civilians.

The U.S. occupation is so hated by the people in Afghanistan that an ever increasing number of Afghan troops and police have been attacking the occupying forces. A classified report written for the U.S. military command in Jalalabad was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The report, which was commissioned after an Afghan policeman killed six U.S. soldiers in November, found that the killings of American soldiers by Afghan troops was turning into a “rapidly growing systemic threat.” The study warns the U.S. military that the magnitude of the killings “may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern history.”

First under Bush and now under Obama, U.S. imperialism continues an endless war in Afghanistan, with all its incredible costs to the working peoples and the poor in both Afghanistan and its neighbors, as well as the U.S. itself.

U.S. forces out of Afghanistan–NOW!