Now Is The Time To End Our War in Afghanistan…Not 2014

The Afghan government is demanding that US Special Forces leave Wardak province immediately. Apparently accusations that Afghan troops working with the US Special Forces are torturing Afghan captives and civilians are behind these actions. The demand has caught NATO forces off guard but are one more indication of the growing resentment of continued foreign activities in and occupation of Afghan territories.

There is no reason to wait until 2014. Let’s just quietly and quickly and as safely as possible withdraw all American and NATO forces from Afghanistan. Nothing will happen there if we leave now that won’t happen after 2014. Why continue to put American lives at risk for 18 more months?

Updated: Changed spelling from Warduck (as originally listed on Yahoo) to Wardak…the correct spelling of the provincial name.

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6 thoughts on “Now Is The Time To End Our War in Afghanistan…Not 2014

  1. Now that the United States has allied itself with Al Qaeda in Tunisia, Libya and Syria in order to destabilize the region in preparation for “humanitarian” military interventions, the presence of NATO troops in Afghanistan under the GWOT banner does seem rather pointless, unless the purpose of the occupation is to control the vast mineral resources of the region and not to spread freedom and democracy.

    Do you know what an Empire is, boys and girls? The oil and mining conglomerates thank all veterans for their service.

    1. If we were there for the mineral resources, we should have been exploiting them by now…and that was an article I thought about writing here a year ago…how we messed that up along with a chance to stablize the situation via legit development and jobs…I am expecting the minute we are out of there the Chinese mining companies will be all over it.

  2. Well, we aren’t really getting out:

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/us-afghanistan-plan-to-force-nato-into-greater-role-after-withdrawal-a-884836.html

    The United States envisions only a minimal presence of American troops in Afghanistan once the NATO mission comes to an end in late 2014. SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that fewer than 10,000 US soldiers are to remain stationed in the country beyond that date … only half of the units stationed in Afghanistan beyond 2014 will be made available for training Afghan troops.
    —–

    So, we are going to maintain a force large enough to keep control of the Afghan army, with some left over for special situations where we really need to kill lots of people efficiently. We will still have air bases there and plenty of drones. I think we will eventually implement a strategy similar to the one used in Iraq and buy off a good portion of the Taliban. If their leadership is given a cut of the profits, I believe they will accept resource exploitation as an alternative to having their families vaporized by drones. As a bonus, they will be permitted to grow all the opium poppies they want, provided the majority of the heroin is shipped to China and Russia. I think this is the dream, or fantasy, of Pentagon planners and the CIA. But then, I’m cynical, because life has taught me that when it comes to foreign policy and military affairs it’s nearly impossible to be cynical enough.

  3. Fail # 2 in Afghanistan and I wrote about this elsewhere during the 2004 campaign and should have repeated it here. The UN stated back in 2003 or 2004 that they only had about 70 – 75% of the opiate pain killers that they needed in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. We could have easily legalized Afghan poppy production and diverted it to the UN for conversion to legal and needed medications…or if we just wanted down and dirty co-operation we could have just flat out bought up the crop each year. It would have probably cost far less than trying to destroy it and would have removed a revenue stream from Taliban control. But not satisfied in exporting a shooting war to Afghanistan, we had to bring our failed war on drugs as well. Thank you GWB.

  4. Here is an excellent column by Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist in exile, concerning the type of forces the U.S. will leave behind in Afghanistan

    Is the US maintaining death squads and torture militias in Afghanistan?
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/afghanistan-death-squads-torture-militas

    “The provincial governor and other officials from Maidan Wardak presented evidence against US forces at the national security council meeting. The presidential palace later issued a statement saying: ‘After a thorough discussion, it became clear that armed individuals named as US special forces stationed in Wardak province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people.

    “‘A recent example in the province is an incident in which nine people were disappeared in an operation by this suspicious force and in a separate incident a student was taken away at night from his home, whose tortured body with throat cut was found two days later under a bridge,’ the statement added” . . . .

    “Aimal Faizi, spokesman for Karzai, said the decision came after of months of reports of abuse.

    “‘People have been complaining about US special forces units torturing people, killing people in that province, and nine individuals were taken from their homes recently and they have just disappeared and no one knows where they have gone,’ Faizi said.”

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