Afghanistan: Why We Should Get Out

"We will not walk away from Afghanistan, as the outside world has done so many times before," Tony Blair said famously in 2001, just before the country was invaded by the United States, disguised as "the international community". This was of course a complete inversion of history, which in the past 200 years has not been a story of invading forces "walking away" but of foreign armies being driven out by the opposition and resistance of the Afghan people. We are witnessing history repeating itself, with the more indiscreet army commanders in America and Britain admitting, "We are not winning in Afghanistan."

In the meantime, the suffering to the Afghan people caused by the refusal of the warmongers to "walk away" is everywhere to be seen in a country designated by the United Nations as fourth from last on its Human Poverty Index of 178 nations:

* Average life expectancy is little more than 40 years.
* 700 children and 60 women die each day from hunger and lack of health care.
* The illiteracy rate is 70 percent in the cities and up to 99 percent in the countryside.
* Only a quarter of the population has access to clean water
* Only 10 percent of the population have access to electricity.

Instead of "walking away, as a recent poll suggested the majority of Afghan people want to happen immediately, America and Britain have announced plans to escalate the war, by sending more troops to kill and be killed, and by extending the killing fields into Pakistan.

The sharply rising numbers of British army casualties show where these war policies are leading, with Private Ben Ford two weeks ago becoming - at 18 years and barely out of school - the youngest soldier to die in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.

A new pamphlet published by Stop the War is now available, with an introduction by campaigning journalist John Pilger. It covers the war, women's rights, the opium boom, the country's shattered infrastructure, the horrific cost in Afghan lives and the cost to British tax payers, the majority of whom want Britain out of Afghanistan. It is an invaluable resource to those who want to learn more about the invasion and its aftermath.

Source: www.stopwar.org.uk