2,806 US and 447 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The total cost to the US of war, reconstruction and aid over the same period is $641.7bn (£390bn while the UK figure is said to be £60 billion). Of course, money spent on Afghanistan does not mean money spent in Afghanistan, but even taking this into account it is extraordinary that, despite gargantuan sums spent, Afghan government figures reveal that 60 per cent of children are malnourished and only 27 per cent of Afghans have access to safe drinking water. Many survive only through remittances from relatives working abroad or through the drug business, which is worth some 15 per cent of the Afghan gross national product. Afghanistan ranked bottom of the 177 countries (equal with Somalia and North Korea) in Transparency International's league table of perception of corruption by businessmen.
Elections are now so fraudulent as to rob the winners of legitimacy. The April 2014 election is likely to be worse than anything seen before, with 20.7 million voter cards distributed in a country where half the population of 27 million are under the voting age of 18. Independent election monitoring institutions have been taken over by and are now under the thumb of the government.
The Taliban has not been crushed, operates in all parts of the country and, in provinces like Helmand, is poised to take over as US and British troops depart. Western leaders simply ignore Afghan reality and take refuge in spin that is not far from deliberate lying. During a visit to Helmand province last December David Cameron claimed that a basic level of security had been established, so British troops could justly claim that their mission had been accomplished. Nobody in Afghanistan believes this.
In 1843 British army chaplain G.R. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. He wrote that it was:
"A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”
Not much has changed.
Taken from here
Elections are now so fraudulent as to rob the winners of legitimacy. The April 2014 election is likely to be worse than anything seen before, with 20.7 million voter cards distributed in a country where half the population of 27 million are under the voting age of 18. Independent election monitoring institutions have been taken over by and are now under the thumb of the government.
The Taliban has not been crushed, operates in all parts of the country and, in provinces like Helmand, is poised to take over as US and British troops depart. Western leaders simply ignore Afghan reality and take refuge in spin that is not far from deliberate lying. During a visit to Helmand province last December David Cameron claimed that a basic level of security had been established, so British troops could justly claim that their mission had been accomplished. Nobody in Afghanistan believes this.
In 1843 British army chaplain G.R. Gleig wrote a memoir of the disastrous First Anglo-Afghan War, of which he was one of the very few survivors. He wrote that it was:
"A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated”
Not much has changed.
Taken from here
1 comment:
In 2014, the U.S. will spend 2.1 million dollars for every U.S. soldier stationed in Afghanistan. Convoys travel constantly between US military bases, transporting large amounts of fuel, food and clean water -- luxury items to people living in refugee camps along their routes
http://www.countercurrents.org/kelly301213.htm
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