Public Comment

Yet another drone carnage occurred just over a week ago. Afghan officials say at least 17 civilians were killed by U.S. drone strikes in Afghanistan. The first strike hit the truck of a local elder killing the elder and 11 others. The second drone struck killed two people who were collecting their bodies. A third drone strike killed three more villagers who had rushed to see what had happened. Predictably, the Pentagon claimed there were no civilian casualties. This latest tragedy comes on the heels of a U.S. oversight office report which issued a damning indictment of Pentagon wastage. The report indicates that since 2002 $113 billion to reconstruct Afghanistan has largely been wasted. The report provides details of shoddily built structures, unsafe roads and hundreds of empty schools. U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko, who was responsible for the report, said, "Fifteen years into an unfinished work of funding and fighting, we must indeed ask, 'What went wrong?'" The $113 billion exceeds more than the total the U.S. spent on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. 

It is time to call a halt to our Afghanistan misadventure which has costs precious Afghan and American lives, and squandered billions. We are paying a heavy price for giving a blank check to the Pentagon in the mistaken belief that they are keeping us safe and winning the nebulous ‘war on terror’. Civilian deaths are fueling much of the insurgency.