- Cost of having troops in Afghanistan

- 1,300 soldiers died

- 1,200 Afghani soldiers injured
- Counter insurgency wont work because we have no support from the
Afghanistan corrupt gov’t
- Afghanistan- GDP= $26B (33M people)
- War efforts for war in Afghanistan- costing us $2B a week, $104B a year,
putting us more into debt
- According Leon Paneta, the CIA Director, there is only 100 members of Al
Qaeda left. Is it still worth losing American troops over 100 Al Qaeda
members?
- Money is going to the war in Afghanistan as appose to helping rebuild
Afghanistan
o The longer the war continues, the more infrastructure we destroy ->
harder to build up the country after the war.
- Biggest source of violence and stability is not the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The
biggest source of violence is the US military, with its “Global War on
Terrorism”
- The US army claims the thousands of armed soldiers, snipers, thousands of
jet fighters, helicopter gunships, unmanned aerial drones, tanks, missiles,
bombs and high-tech weaponry are not there for war, but for peace. The
increased violence in Afghanistan is simply overwhelming.
- Parallel to the war in Vietnam- the war is unbeatable, and the lesson of
Vietnam is being ignored.
On the day September 11th 2001, we had a justifiable reason for engaging into war
with Afghanistan. Now we have achieved our goal and significantly reduced the
amount of Al Qaeda operatives in the country. Now it is time to withdraw our troops
from this now meaningless war. According to CIA Director Leon Panetta there are
no more than 100 al-Qaeda operatives left in the country. Therfore, why should one
more of our troops die?

COIN which is our current counter insurgency policy is not going to be

successful with the current President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzii. President Hamid
Karzai has proved a weak ruler far too tolerant of corruption and the only possible
way that COIN will work is with the help of the Afghan government. The war in
Afghanistan is very different than that of Iraq where we had a loyal government to
support us.

In addition, the biggest source of violence and instability in Afghanistan is not the
Taliban or Al-Qaeda, it’s the US military and its “Global War on Terrorism.” Its pretty
astonishing that our leaders, including Obama, can sit there with a straight face and
claim that it’s the poorly trained, lightly armed militia of the Taliban, and the even
less numerous, Al-Qaeda that is causing the all the violence in Afghanistan. They
claim the thousands of armed soldiers, snipers, thousands of jet fighters, helicopter
gunships, unmanned aerial drones, tanks, missiles, bombs and high-tech weaponry
are not there for war, but for peace. The increased violence in Afghanistan is simply
overwhelming.

The war in Afghanistan is costing the US and other “coalition” countries trillions of
dollars and will only deepen the economic crisis at home and abroad. If the
priorities of our government are to dominate the globe at the expense of the poor
and oppressed abroad, then you can imagine they might not have a large place in
their domestic budget for the poor and oppressed in the US.

Another crucial point opposing the war is that Afghan women continue to face
violence and oppression under the occupation. Also, Military escalation will only
increase the violence, and potentially lead to a wider war involving nuclear-armed
Pakistan.

We are focusing mainly on Afghanistan while there are many other places such as
Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan that are used as military bases for terrorists.