U.S. War in Afghanistan: 'Increasing Violence and Instability'

The AP reports: "The head of an international medical charity whose hospital in northern Afghanistan was destroyed in a U.S. airstrike says the 'extensive, quite precise destruction' of the bombing raid casts doubt on American military assertions that it was a mistake."

Huffington Post reports: "Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday that he supports President Barack Obama's decision to keep troops in Afghanistan, prolonging the war beyond 2016. ... Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton also said Friday that she thought Obama had made 'the right decision.'"

JUNAID AHMED, junaidsahmad at gmail.com
Currently in the Washington, D.C. area, Ahmed is director of the Center for Global Dialog in Lahore, and is also a professor of law and politics at the University of Lahore, Pakistan. Ahmed was recently interviewed by The Real News.

He said today: "President Obama's decision to rescind his earlier pronouncement of withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan must be interpreted as an admission to the great scandal of the 'global war on terrorism': Western violence has only increased violence and instability, not ended or reduced it. While he continues to ridiculously invoke the insignificant Al Qaeda threat as the main pretext for the ongoing U.S. presence in Afghanistan, President Obama is in fact deflecting attention attention from what's really going on: multiplying Taliban and resistance factions emerging and militarily humiliating the puppet Afghan security forces, as well as the rapid and widespread rise of ISIS in the country. The U.S./NATO Occupation, now almost a decade and a half after the invasion of 2001, is directly responsible for creating the conditions that have produced these dangerous forces.

"While what's really needed to solve Afghanistan's problems and endemic violence are political negotiations involving all of the regional countries and the factions they support, Washington continues to prioritize its bitter rivalry with those countries -- such as Iran, Russia, and China -- and hence is only interested in continuing to project its arrogant power, regardless of the cost to the Afghan people."