We’re Fighting in a War We Lost Before the War Began [View all]

[rug]

By Phyllis Bennis

It shouldn’t surprise anyone, but support for the longest U.S. war is dropping further and faster than ever. The latest national U.S. poll, released on May 9, shows 66 percent of Americans are against the war in Afghanistan – with 40 percent “strongly opposed.”

We can expect to hear the usual spin, claims that it’s a hard slog but Afghans are still better off and we have to finish what we started. That only the presence of our brave troops is giving the Afghan government and military the chance to consolidate their rule. That only our troops provide the possibility for stability and security in Afghanistan. That we have to stay to protect Afghan women.

But the reality is people have watched – and paid for – this war for more than eleven years now, and some facts just can’t be spun anymore. Half of the 66 percent who oppose the war say that the presence of U.S. troops is actually hurting the people of Afghanistan more than they are helping. They’re the ones who got it right.

U.S. troops urinate on the bodies of dead Afghans. U.S. troops burn Qu’rans. One or more U.S. troops goes on a murderous rampage killing 17 civilians, 9 of them children. U.S. troops photograph each other grinning with the body parts of dead Afghans draped over their shoulders. As for protecting women, according to Save the Children’s new “State of the World’s Mothers” report, Afghanistan is the second worst place in the world for a mother to give birth and try raise a child.

http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/05/11/we-re-fighting-in-a-war-we-lost-before-the-war-began.html

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