The U.S. military marked its 18th year in Afghanistan last year and, in the process, set a depressing new record by dropping 7,423 bombs in the country, the highest number since U.S Air Forces Central Command began tracking the figures in 2006.
This number comes on the heels of the December publication of internal government documents by the Washington Post. These documents, which came from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, confirmed what millions of Americans already knew: The war in Afghanistan, costing more than $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars as well as the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers, is a war without a mission. The upper echelons of the federal government don’t know what purpose a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan serves.
So why, then, does the U.S. government continue to drop nearly 7,500 bombs on Afghanistan, killing hundreds of civilians each year? Who are the targets supposed to be? What purpose does the destruction serve? What is the objective?
Getting answers to such questions is practically impossible. Those responsible for U.S. policy in Afghanistan will not explain their decisions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper refused to attend a congressional hearing on the war in Afghanistan last month. President Donald Trump has long said he wants to wind down the conflict, yet it persists.
The American people deserve to know why the war in Afghanistan continues, in spite of what is plainly obvious to most citizens, soldiers and veterans. This conflict has gone on unabated for nearly two decades. Children born just after the initial invasion are now old enough to fight the same battle. Who can justify the unjustifiable?
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., may have said it best: “Our young men and women that we send to war, our best and our brightest, they deserve better.” An explanation is the least we are owed.
