The Afghan war that didn't really end yesterday ended in defeat. None of the claimed long term objectives for the war in Afghanistan, either from the Bush or Obama administrations, have been achieved.
Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor - News websites and broadcasts - and US and NATO press releases - were filled with discussion about the "formal" end of the Afghan war yesterday. But any close reading of the facts will find that they were wrong.
Call it semi-formal, or business casual, whatever you like. The reality remains the same: For American soldiers and for the Afghan people the war that began on Oct. 7, 2001 will go on.
While most of America's NATO allies that hadn't already washed their hands of combat will now do so, American fighting and dying will continue, with 11,000 US troops remaining in the country. There will be talk of "advising," and "training" and "non-combat" presence. But for the most part that can be safely ignored.
US casualties compared to Afghan ones have been negligible. Over 4,000 Afghan soldiers and cops were killed fighting in 2014 alone, compared to 2,224 US soldiers killed fighting there since 2001. Civilian deaths had soared to 3,188 by the end of November, making this year the bloodiest for civilians since at least 2009, when the UN began tracking civilian deaths. The civilian death toll is at least a 20 percent increase over last year.
If Afghan history is anything to go by, it's due to get worse as America's longest war winds down to its inevitable conclusion. For the Afghans, who have been embroiled in a civil war with heavy foreign meddling since 1979, the prospect of peace seems slim....
President Obama claimed yesterday that "we are safer, and our nation is more secure" thanks to the sacrifices of the Afghan war. There's no evidence to support that claim, and plenty to suggest the war has been a long, self-inflicted wound on the country. The job of scattering old Al Qaeda was accomplished by 2003. By the time Bin Laden was killed in a daring US raid in 2011, he was living comfortably in the Pakistani military garrison town of Abbottabad. Mullah Omar, the titular head of the Taliban, has likewise lived in Pakistan for years.
Meanwhile, opium production in Afghanistan has soared despite $7 billion flushed down the tubes by the US on opium eradication. Afghanistan can not by any stretch be called a democracy - vote buying and thuggery at the polls dominate elections. The country's government is entirely dependent on foreign aid, and has been gifted or burdened, depending on your perspective, with assets it cannot afford.
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