According to ACBAR, an umbrella organisation representing several charities operating in Afghanistan, the situation there is deteriorating, with attacks up and casualties soaring, particularly among civilians. What's particularly sickening is that many othe casualties are so-called 'collateral-damage' resulting from Western action:
The report blames the Taliban insurgents for roughly two-thirds of the civilian casualties, but adds: "The increased number of air strikes by international military forces, which are up by approximately 40 per cent on last year, has also contributed to the rising civilian death toll."
Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has repeatedly warned international troops that killing innocent civilians risks eroding their fragile popular mandate. Last summer he branded the number of civilian casualties and arbitrary house searches "unacceptable". Last month he ordered an investigation after reports that 15 civilians died in a US airstrike.
Claims have since surfaced of 23 wedding guests dying under American bombs. This week, two children were shot dead when their car got too close to a military convoy. (1)
We havent' captured Osama Bin Laden. We haven't defeated the Taliban. We haven't made Afghanistan safe for Afghans. But we have killed a lot of them, disappeared some into mysterious and sinister interrogation centres run by savages who delight in torture and made such a hash of things even the puppet president of Afghanistan is desperately trying to disassociate himself from us.
1 - "Afghanistan spiralling back to days of Taliban, say charities," by Jerome Starkey in The Independent, 1st of August, 2008. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghanistan-spiralling-back-to-days-of-taliban-say-charities-882626.html)
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