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<div class="breadcrumb"><a href="http://vcnv.org/frontpage2">Home</a></div> <h1 class="title">Obama Extends War in Afghanistan</h1>
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<div class="rightfloat-box-taxonomy">Categories: <a href="http://vcnv.org/category/afghanistan" rel="tag" title="">Afghanistan</a></div>
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<div class="vcnv_author">By <a href="http://vcnv.org/speaker-bio/kathy-kelly">Kathy Kelly</a></div><p>November 22, 2014</p><p>News agencies reported this morning that weeks ago President Obama
signed an order, kept secret until now, to authorize continuation of the
Afghan war for at least another year. The order authorizes U.S.
airstrikes “to support Afghan military operations in the country” and
U.S. ground troops to continue normal operations, which is to say, to
“occasionally accompany Afghan troops” on operations against the
Taliban. </p><p>The administration, in its leak to the New York Times, affirmed that
there had been “heated debate” between Pentagon advisers and others in
Obama’s cabinet chiefly concerned not to lose soldiers in combat. Oil
strategy isn’t mentioned as having been debated and neither is further
encirclement of China, but the most notable absence in the reporting was
any mention of cabinet members’ concern for Afghan civilians affected
by air strikes and ground troop operations, in a country already
afflicted by nightmares of poverty and social breakdown. </p><p>Here are just three events, excerpted from an August 2014 Amnesty
International report, which President Obama and his advisors should have
considered (and allowed into a public debate) before once more
expanding the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan:</p><p>1) In September, 2012 a group of women from an impoverished village
in mountainous Laghman province were collecting firewood when a U.S.
plane dropped at least two bombs on them, killing seven and injuring
seven others, four of them seriously. One villager, Mullah Bashir, told
Amnesty, “…I started searching for my daughter. Finally I found her. Her
face was covered with blood and her body was shattered.” </p><p>2) A U.S. Special Operations Forces unit was responsible for
extrajudicial killing, torture and enforced disappearances during the
period of December, 2012 to February, 2013. Included among those
tortured was 51 year old Qandi Agha, “a petty employee of the Ministry
of Culture,” who described in detail the various torture techniques he
suffered. He was told that he would be tortured using “14 different
types of torture”. These included: Beatings with cables, electric shock,
prolonged, painful stress positions, repeated head first dunking in a
barrel of water, and burial in a hole full of cold water for entire
nights. He said that both US Special Forces and Afghans participated in
the torture and often smoked hashish while doing so. </p><p>3) On March 26, 2013 the village of Sajawand was attacked by joint
Afghan—ISAF (International Special Assistance Forces). Between 20-30
people were killed including children. After the attack, a cousin of one
of the villagers visited the scene and stated, ”The first thing I saw
as I entered the compound was a little child of maybe three years old
whose chest was torn apart; you could see inside her body. The house was
turned into a pile of mud and poles and there was nothing left. When we
were taking out the bodies we didn’t see any Taliban among the dead,
and we didn’t know why they were hit or killed.”
NYT coverage of the leaked debate mentions Obama’s promise, made earlier
this year and now broken, to withdraw troops. The article doesn’t make
any other mention of U.S. public opposition to a continuation of the
war. </p><p>Attempts to remake Afghanistan by military force have resulted in
warlordism, ever more widespread and desperate poverty, and bereavement
for hundreds of thousands whose loved ones are among the tens of
thousands of casualties. Area hospitals report seeing fewer IED injuries
and many more bullet wounds from pitched battles between rival armed
militias whose allegiances, Taliban, government, or other, are hard to
determine. With 40% of U.S. weapon supplies to Afghan security forces
now unaccounted for, many of the weapons employed on all sides may have
been supplied by the U.S. </p><p>Meanwhile the implications for U.S. democracy aren’t reassuring. Was
this decision really made weeks ago but only announced now that
congressional elections are safely over? Was a Friday night cabinet
leak, buried between official Administration announcements on
immigration and Iran sanctions, really the President’s solution to the
unpopularity of a decision affecting the lives of so many? With
concern for the wishes of U.S. citizens given so little weight, it is
doubtful that much thought was given to the terrible costs of these
military interventions for ordinary people trying to live, raise
families and survive in Afghanistan.</p><p>But for those whose “heated debates” focus solely on what is best for U.S. national interests, here are a few suggestions:</p><p>1) The U.S. should end its current provocative drive toward military
alliances and encirclement of Russia and China with missiles. It
should accept pluralism of economic and political power in the
contemporary world. Present U.S. policies are provoking a return to
Cold War with Russia and possibly beginning one with China. This is a
lose/lose proposition for all countries involved.</p><p>2) By a resetting of policy focused on cooperation with Russia,
China and other influential countries within the framework of the United
Nations, the United States could foster international mediation. </p><p>3) The U.S. should offer generous medical and economic aid and
technical expertise wherever it may be helpful in other countries and
thus build a reservoir of international goodwill and positive influence.</p><p>That’s something that nobody would have to keep secret. </p>
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