By Aleksey Pushkov:
Yet again NATO forces bombed civilian houses in Afghanistan. “Those are concerns that we share and take very seriously,” said Jay Carney, President Barack Obama’s second White House Press Secretary.
How many times have the U.S. officials uttered these meaningless words! How many times have they been seriously concerned with reports on civilian casualties but did absolutely nothing to change it? The American troops continue to methodically shoot and bomb civilians in Afghanistan.
A few days ago even Hamid Karzai, the head of Afghanistan, could not stand it any longer, despite being kept in power only with NATO’s bayonets. The level of indignation in the country and around Karzai himself has reached such a point that Karzai was forced to declare that it was a final warning to the Americans. “If [NATO] does not stop air strikes on Afghan homes,” Karzai said, “their presence in Afghanistan will be considered that of an occupying force.”
Actually, invaders they are. The Afghans have no doubt in this regard. Moreover, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, civilians were also killed but, as Afghans say, at least the Soviets built schools, power plants and roads, while the Americans only shoot, bomb and destroy.
“American and NATO forces have been told repeatedly that uncoordinated operations will only kill innocent civilians,” said Hamid Karzai. “But no one listened. NATO should understand that no one gave them the right to strike Afghan villages. The people have lost their patience.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded briefly to Karzai by saying that it is a “tragic fact” that some casualties are “inevitable and unavoidable.” That means that civilians in Afghanistan will continue to be killed. It’s not going to be a single incident but hundreds and thousands of civilian deaths. Please note everything that happens has nothing to do with the aggressive George W. Bush; it happens during the presidency of a peacemaker, Barack Obama! Once again that proves that with or without Obama, the U.S. remains true to itself everywhere, from Libya to Afghanistan.
But let me ask a question. What do the U.S. and NATO troops do in Afghanistan anyway? They have already been there for so long that nobody seems to remember why they came in the first place. They went there because the Taliban government, which ruled Afghanistan back in 2001, had refused to extradite bin Laden to the United States. Osama bin Laden was accused of organizing the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. That is, the aim was to catch bin Laden, either dead or alive, as was declared by George W. Bush. But Osama bin Laden was killed and, if you believe the U.S. administration, he was found not in Afghanistan. So what are the U.S. troops still doing in Afghanistan?
We are told that they are fighting al-Qaida and international terrorism and, at the same time, protecting the Central Asian republics from it. The latter meets Russia’s interests. However, the elusive al-Qaida is a network organization: Cut its head off and ten more will grow instead. In any case, the U.S. has already convinced us that the fight with al-Qaida can be endless and, it looks like without causing any substantial damage to it, from Morocco to Indonesia, passing through Yemen and Pakistan. So why exactly has the large-scale war been going on for almost 10 years in Afghanistan? What do the U.S. and NATO expect to achieve? Whatever they are trying to protect Central Asia from, and no matter how many of the Taliban group members they kill, it is clear that the war is doomed. “The Americans and their allies are winning all the battles but losing the war,” wrote about the German magazine Der Spiegel.
It seems that the U.S. is waging this war under its own inertia only because they are afraid to leave, to lose face and the remnants of their authority. But it is clear that the day will come; they still have to sit down to talks with the Taliban and negotiate with them and, ultimately, allow them to govern the country. It is no coincidence that Karzai and his entourage are actively buying up property in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. They know better than anyone else how precarious their current authority is.
To summarize, civilians are killed in Afghanistan not for the sake of freedom and democracy, which the Americans are not able to bring there anyway. They are killed because the U.S. does not want to admit the obvious. It was the same in Vietnam, where the Americans eventually had to leave. How many more women and children have to die in Afghan villages until the U.S. finally realizes that they are fighting a totally senseless war that they have already lost?
Vzglyad, Russia
Translated By Natalia Dresner
7 June 2011
Edited by Sam Carter
Russia – Vzglyad – Original Article (Russian)