The "necessary war" in Afghanistan, which both presidential candidates support - the one, you know, that's really about terrorists and Osama and all - raises as many troubling questions about who we are as the other war we're fighting and losing.
Consider the details of this war. The aggregate civilian death toll, at the hands of the U.S. and NATO - between 6,800 and more than 8,000, according to economics professor Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire - is a start. But Herold's about-to-be-released report on the bombing campaign in Afghanistan, "The Matrix of Death," is a disturbing analysis not only of the collateral damage churned up by our terrorist-hunt in this broken nation, but of the attitude and rationality that are driving it. The report is subtitled: "The (Under)Valuation of an Afghan Life."
This is a report on the flawed premise from which ultimate failure flows - the flawed premise that keeps hell active and guarantees an endless supply of enemies. And the more of these "enemies," and their children, that we kill, the less safe we are, and we know this, so we lie about the numbers of dead. Most of all we lie about what we are, in fact, doing, which is fighting an irrational war, most accurately called the war to promote terror. We will not win it unless we revert to the morality of Ancient Rome: "create a wasteland and call it peace." But that's not winning, either.
read full article at Common Dreams