Escalating the U.S. Air War in Afghanistan Isn’t Working by Bonnie Kristian - Defense One
A U.S. airstrike in the Kunduz province of Afghanistan on Saturday killed 13 civilians, the United Nations reported Monday. Ten of them were children, all from the same extended family. One day earlier, on Friday, two American soldiers were killed, also in Kunduz, both felled by small-arms fire. The Pentagon released their identities Sunday: Sgt. 1st Class Will D. Lindsay, 33, from Colorado, and Spc. Joseph P. Collette, 29, from Ohio. And though we don’t know exactly how many Afghan soldiers and police officers were killed on each of those days, as those figures are now kept secret, a New York Times report in September put their average fatalities at a shocking “30 to 40” every single day.
This is the state of Afghanistan in 2019. Civilian casualties are at a record high; U.S. troops remain in harm’s way as our air war dramatically escalates; and the United States’ longest war in history—waged at an enormous cost in blood and treasure both—has failed to achieve for Afghanistan anything resembling a stable peace…