but somehow are not important to the occupiers (us). So instead, this weekend in a fortfied Chicago, the US will ask NATO countries to pony up more cash to pay for more bombs - sweet and double slick.
Afghanistan: The Quagmire of U.S. Occupation
In many places outside Kabul, the Taliban and other warlords are in total control of local militias
By Nicole Colson
The U.S. war and occupation of Afghanistan was supposed to bring stability and democracy. Instead, Afghanistan remains a country on the brink of disaster – one that has clearly been exacerbated by the U.S. presence.
More than 10 years after the U.S. war began, in spite of the presence of about 2,000 international aid groups, at least $3.5 billion in humanitarian funds and $58 billion in development assistance, humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan remain abysmal.
This past winter, one of the harshest in recent years, compounded the suffering of those living in refugee camps – an estimated 35,000 people just in the capital of Kabul, and many more around the country. The camps, according to the New York Times, are euphemistically referred to as "informal settlements," because labeling them as what they really are, camps full of war refugees, is "politically sensitive." According to the Times, "The Afghan government insists that the residents should and could return to their original homes; the residents say it is too dangerous for them to do so."
The death rate for children under age five in these camps is 144 out of 1,000, according to Julie Bara of Solidarités International. The Times calls this "stunningly high even for Afghanistan, which already has the world's third highest infant mortality rate."
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But it isn't only the dire conditions in the refugee camps. By any measure, even those of the occupiers, the U.S. war and occupation has been a dismal failure – failing to liberate women, failing to improve conditions for ordinary Afghans, failing to bring about democracy, failing to stop the killing of civilians, failing to permanently oust the Taliban, failing to train a national armed forces.
Of course, that's because the U.S. occupation was never about liberation and democracy in the first place. It was about securing an imperial foothold in the region – no matter the consequence to the Afghan people. Now, as the U.S. occupation unravels, it is ordinary Afghans who are suffering the consequences as the U.S. looks in vain for a "Plan B" that doesn't exist.
Read more: http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2012/04/11/afghanistan-the-quagmire-of-u-s-occupation.html#ixzz1vHIiWQPE
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