Obama’s NATO-Afghan “Peace” Summit:
A Plan to Continue the War

Apr 30, 2012

The Obama administration announced that NATO will hold a summit meeting in Chicago with the Afghan government on May 20. Supposedly the summit will finalize a plan to end U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan over the next two years.

In fact, this summit is little more than an election-year stunt. British newspapers are reporting that the agreement will allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024! These would include American Special Forces soldiers and air power, practically guaranteeing that the war will continue to rage for a long time.

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is already the longest war in U.S. history. Since it began in October 2001, the U.S. has carried out bombings, nighttime raids and search and destroy missions that have killed tens of thousands of Afghans, destroyed much of the country, and turned most of the population against the U.S., thus swelling the insurgency.

On a regular basis insurgents carry out attacks inside the most fortified parts of Kabul, called the Ring of Steel. These attacks are only possible with the cooperation and collaboration of parts of the Afghan police and army. Only days before the announcement of the U.S. plan, heavily armed insurgents attacked several embassies and the Parliament plus three provincial capitals and a U.S. air base–all at the same time.

The Afghan military and police also regularly attack U.S. and NATO troops as well. Rather than getting smaller, the U.S. war is feeding on itself. It is sowing ever more death and destruction, turning not just Afghanistan, but the whole region around it, into a more and more dangerous and explosive hell.