It’s just that we talk less about the violence and destruction of our occupation in Afghanistan. I am growing concerned about Obama’s stated interest in escalating our occupation of Afghanistan, when just as in Iraq, we need to acknowledge the limits of military solutions to international problems.
Code Pink is concerned too, and sent out a message about how to press for more honesty about the violence that is a result of our occupation. They want to move Obama on this issue, which I think is a great idea.
This was on my mind today because I caught this excellent and brief Democracy Now piece features Sonali Kolhatkar. Kolhatkar is an international correspondent who is pressing the case that if we were paying closer attention, we would be just as appalled with the results of Afghanistan occupation as we are with the Iraq occupation. From her interview with Amy Goodman:
Afghanistan is just as much a failure as Iraq, OK? We are using the same tactics. We are rounding people up, detaining them, bombing civilians. Associated Press did a count earlier in the year of how many civilians the Taliban had claimed to kill versus how many officially killed by NATO. Guess what? NATO was winning that count. NATO had killed actually more civilians than the Taliban. And we have not heard about that. Afghanistan, just as much a failure as Iraq.
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