We know from our work challenging the U.S. assassin drone program from 2001 onward in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Syria and other countries, that many civilians who had no link with any terrorist group have been killed by these drones -- people gathered for weddings, funerals, helping survivors of drone attacks in double taps or just going about daily life in their home compounds.
After having reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in December 2001, I have watched the unfolding events of the 11 days of evacuation of over 124,000 people from the Kabul airport and have known in general terms, some of the behind the scenes decisions that had to be made very quickly by the diplomats and military from many countries to get their citizens and Afghan colleagues out of the country. In 1997 we ended up evacuating over 1,200 people in four hours in the last day of the three-day evacuation. At the time, it was the largest evacuation since Saigon.
We too were faced with a relatively sudden change of circumstances that one could classify as an "intelligence failure." We knew that the RUF was taking over more villages in the rural areas and we wondered why the Sierra Leonean military was not responding better to prevent RUF movements. We did not have specific information that elements within the military had decided to join forces with the rebel group.
In Afghanistan, it was very apparent that the Taliban was taking more and more provinces with little resistance from Afghan military and national police and that Taliban forces were going to be in the Kabul area faster than the three to six months that the U.S. government intelligence agencies apparently were predicting.
The decision to withdraw the remaining 2,500 U.S. military prior to dramatically increasing the number of American citizens and special immigrant visa holders and friends of the U.S., was a mistake.
A mistake, like the mistake to think that military action in Afghanistan to go after Al Qaeda was the way to deal with terrorist actions, and like the mistake to think that 20 years of occupation of a country was in U.S. national interest or the Afghanistan national interest, especially a country with indigenous forces that over time defeated other militarized empires for the past 500 years, the lessons known but not respected, are lessons that our politicians who like the profits of war for the corporations who are their campaign contributors, are lessons learned very well -- war is profitable and therefore, they will support wars instead of diplomacy to resolve political issues.
As these mistaken leaders try to convince the American public that China and Russia must be dealt with and they increase dramatically the numerous of dangerous military naval, air and land war maneuvers that could lead to a worldwide nuclear catastrophe, we must continue to challenge these mistaken political leaders of our country and demand that the war mentality must end.
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