NICE plane,,,,,,
The dramatic increase in U.S. airstrikes that began last year has brought the country no closer to peace. In fact, Afghan soldiers, police, and civilians are dying at record rates.
A U.S. airstrike in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan on Saturday killed 13 civilians, the United Nations reported Monday. Ten of them were children, all from the same extended family. One day earlier, on Friday, two American soldiers were killed, also in Kunduz, both felled by small-arms fire. The Pentagon released their identities Sunday: Sgt. 1st Class Will D. Lindsay, 33, from Colorado, and Spc. Joseph P. Collette, 29, from Ohio. And though we don’t know exactly how many Afghan soldiers and police officers were killed on each of those days, as those figures are now kept secret, a New York Times report in September put their average fatalities at a shocking “30 to 40” every single day.
This is the state of Afghanistan in 2019. Civilian casualties are at a record high; U.S. troops remain in harm’s way as our air war dramatically escalates; and the United States’ longest war in history—waged at an enormous cost in blood and treasure both—has failed to achieve for Afghanistan anything resembling a stable peace.
To any outside observer, untainted by establishment Washington’s apparently indelible bias toward military intervention, the conclusion here is obvious: This isn’t working. And after nearly two decades of fighting and nation building, it should be equally obvious that it cannot work and never will. The problem here is concept, not merely execution.
Washington cannot bomb Afghanistan into America’s image or use our military to solve Afghans’ political problems. This is not so much an opinion as a summary conclusion of the last 18 years of conflict in Afghanistan under three presidents from two political parties and 18 different commanders. We’ve tried a panoply of tactics and five separate surges, with U.S. troop levels ranging from less than 10,000 to more than 100,000, with as many as 112,000 U.S. contractors to boot. In the years since the original objective of retribution for the 9/11 terrorist attacks was accomplished, we’ve tried anything and everything—everything except recognizing reality and bringing American forces home.
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http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/03/escalating-air-war-afghanistan-isnt-working/155900/?oref=d-river
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