Afghanistan - More Death, Less Progress

If a person were to accept what President Obama and military leaders are saying about the war in Afghanistan they might think that war is being won. Unfortunately, that is not true. After ten years of war, the only thing that is increasing is the number of people being killed. For coalition troops the last year (2010) was the deadliest year of the war.

There were 499 American soldiers killed in 2010 and 212 soldiers from other coalition nations, for a total of 711 coalition troops killed. That is nearly 200 more deaths than in 2009 and nearly 400 more deaths than in 2008. So far, there have been 76 coalition troops killed in 2011 (49 Americans) and the fighting, which is done mainly in the summer there, has not really cranked up yet.

And it's not just the deaths of soldiers that is climbing in that war-torn country. The deaths of innocent civilians also reached a record high in 2010. The United Nations has reported that at least 2,777 Afghan civilians were killed last year. That's 15% more than in 2009 (which was also a record-setting year).

Most of these civilian deaths were caused by the insurgent forces -- about 74% of them. But that means that 26% (or about 722 deaths) were caused by coalition forces, primarily American (or at least that is where the blame is laid since the U.S. started the war and has the largest number of troops there). And killing over 700 innocent civilians each year is certainly no way to win friends. A recent example is when troops killed 9 young boys who were just collecting firewood. This has created a huge protest among Afghanis (and resulted in Secretary of Defense Gates going to Afghanistan to personally apologize).

And while the "collateral damage" caused by coalition troops rises and new enemies are being created by it, the war itself is not going well. As I have posted before, most provinces in Afghanistan are either insecure or has a deteriorating security situation, with more provinces being insecure than in 2009. Even with 150,000 troops in Afghanistan the coalition forces are not able to control the country. When the insurgents are pushed out of one area they just move to another, and when coalition troops leave they move back in.

And in an effort to try and accomplish something in Afghanistan, the United States is now dialing back the expectations of just what can be accomplished -- especially in the area of human rights. The United States, through the U.S. Agency for International Development, was trying to push land reform in the country. They had established that this would require deeds granting women deeds to increase by 50%, regular media coverage on women's land rights, and teaching materials for secondary schools and universities that includes material on women's rights.

But all those goals have now been tossed out the window (and Afghan women tossed under the bus). As one senior American official said, "Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities. There's no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down." Women's rights are just "pet rocks" -- not worth defending?

We have already put our troops in the position of defending one of the most corrupt governments in that part of the world, a government elected through widespread voter fraud, and now we are not even going to expect that government to respect women's rights. In effect, we have thrown our own human rights principles out to protect a corrupt government that doesn't believe in any of those rights. Just like in Vietnam, we have reduced ourselves to protecting a government that doesn't deserve to be protected -- and we are throwing away the lives of both soldiers and innocent civilians to do it.

This war is an endless mess that is accomplishing nothing -- certainly not the goals it was originally meant to accomplish. The majority of the American people know this and want us to end it and bring our troops back home. It is just the politicians, who can't admit they were wrong and have mired us in an immoral war that can't be won, that want to continue this useless war. It's just being fought for the pride of politicians now, and that's not good enough. That's not worth a single life -- American or Afghani.

It's time to end this war and bring our troops home. Now -- not next year or sometime in the future. NOW!