The war of terror reaches it’s 10th birthday – Has it been worth it?

By Dark Politricks

It’s been 10 years since we went to war in Afghanistan. What has changed?

Are we safer? Nope.

Even though we have supposedly just killed the leader of the enemy organisation we are at war with, Osama Bin Laden and a number of his replacements, we are still faced with daily terrorist threats, colour coded terror levels and suicide bombing attacks all around the world.

Experts reckon that the number of actual al-Qaeda terrorists (the people we actually went to war in the Stan against) number in the dozens. The people we are fighting are mostly Taliban and Pakistani militants that cross the border from their safe havens in North Waziristan to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

Therefore the reason we went to war initially doesn’t exist anymore – that is if the real reason was to defeat Al-Qaeda.

The people we are now fighting are people who want us off their land, who are fed up with the corrupt Karzai government that we installed, and are sick of the high civillian casualties which have soared since America started to use inaccurate drones to do much of their killing.

A recent study showed that 92% of Aghans have never even heard of 9/11 or the World Trade Center.

It also shows that four in 10 Afghans believe the US is on their soil in order to “destroy Islam or occupy Afghanistan.”

Most Afghans are poor villagers who live in mud huts, have no electricity let alone televisions – and the ones who join the Taliban are people who are avenging lost loved ones who have been killed by the war from drones, missiles, kill sqauds and of course “collateral damage”.

These Afghans either want revenge for their lost loved ones or they fight either because the Taliban pay better than most other jobs or for the honour in repelling the invaders who have helped bring over 30 years of endless war to their country.


So what are we doing there apart from propping up the “Mayor of Kabul” who rarely leaves his compound due to the recent high number of successful attacks that have led to the death of his famous drug dealing CIA asset of a brother Ahmad Wali Karzai and the recent killing of ex President and recent negotiator with the Taliban Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Well apart from allowing the opium harvest to increase year by year since the Taliban outlawed it in 2001 and feeding over 90% of the worlds supply we seem to be chasing our tails as well as pushing Pakistan into the picture more and more with accusations that their ISI intelligence agency has been behind many of the recent spectacular attacks in the center of Kabul.

So we can forget all those claims by Tony Blair and Bush that we were there to help eradicate drug production as the Russians can attest to it has only soared since NATO got involved in their country with Russia now the main destination for Afghan heroin.


What about all the girls who can now go to school and get jobs you might ask.

Well yes we have done some good in places where we still actually control the population and can prevent the medival Taliban from burning down and killing girls who dare to educate themselves but is that really why we have sent hundreds of our troops to die in a foreign land?

If that was the case we would be invading other medival places like Saudi Arabia or Nigeria which still implement Sharia law to the point of executing women who have been raped as adulterous.

So if the leaders of Al-Qaeda are now confirmed dead and the only people we are fighting are people like you and me who would undoubtedly fight for our country if it were invaded by a foreign power for a reason unknown to us then what is the reason for our continued presence?

It is clear from listening to military experts from various Armies that they don’t think the Taliban can ever be beaten and history shows that Afghanistan sits on top of the league of “unbeatable countries” so what makes us think we can buck the trend and leave as heroes rather than zeroes like the Russians, Brits and countless other armies of the past?

A Guardian article today stated that:

A British government review of the Afghan conflict is to warn that there are “significant risks” of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the south and east of the country after Nato withdraws its combat troops at the end of the 2014.

and that,

Retired General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), said the force was only “50% of the way” to achieving its goals in the country.

Not only has $57 billion of aid been wasted in places that were secure rather than areas that most required it but the Kabul government has been awash with corruption and any gains in the quality of Afghani lives have been minimal and probably will be reversed once the ISAF forces leave.

So why are we still there when the total cost of the war in monetary terms has undoubtedly contributed to the bankruptcy of the governments involved.

Just think of all the “austerity” measures citizens in the USA and UK wouldn’t be facing today if the billions (UK) and trillions (USA) were spend on the people rather than on the Military Industrial Complex and their endless wars of terror.

Your elected officials allow this waste of money to continue and you continue to elect them to office therefore you cannot escape any blame for the situation we are now facing but when the next elections come around and the debates about deficit reduction, pension and health care cutbacks are raging just look at this counter and think to yourself – has it been worth it.

The following counter from costofwar.com shows the total running cost of the war of terror in both Afghanistan and Iraq since it started in 2001.

The War on Terror has cost the US since 2001
$1,261,829,192,494
The cost of the war of terror to your country .........