The US and other NATO nations are insisting that the Afghan War is over. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is seeing the exact opposite, a war that is continuing to escalate.
The latest ICRC report says they recovered more than twice as many slain Afghan fighters in 2014 than they did in 2013, 1,372 up from only 620. They indicated that the trend is continuing into the new year.
It’s difficult to translate ICRC tolls to the overall war, as they only recover bodies that they are requested to recover by various combatant factions that couldn’t otherwise get to them. The trend is pretty clear, however.
Afghan ICRC head Jean-Nicolas Marti warned that all sides continue to carry out “serious violations of the rules of war” and that the civilian population is having a terrible time, one that’s only going to get worse as the false narrative of an “ended” war slows humanitarian aid.
"…“serious violations of the rules of war”…"
I think it safe to say that what used to be internationally accepted parameters regarding the actions of combatants in war do not exist anymore. When the major powers were allowed to get away with obvious war crimes, over and over, claims of more violations of the norms are irrelevant since the violators don't fear prosecution. They've opened Pandora's Box.
I can't see any reason to provide any aid whatsoever to Afghanistan, or any other war zone. Could the Israeli-Palestinian war have continued for more than sixty years without the aid which has prevented the Palestinians starving or dying of disease or exposure or, of course, the aid which has supported the existence of the Israeli state? The fact is that the modern fashion of providing sustenance for 'refugees' and sometimes UN troops to prevent their massacre is a recipe for endless war. Warfare has reverted from decisive battles which permit ghastly, total slaughters that terrify one of the parties into stopping fighting, or simply kill them all, into an endless series of raids such as we all used to conduct in the good old days of stone axes. If things follow their usual course, a change of fashion will lead to a reversion to colossal slaughters designed to obliterate the populations of disputed areas as our grandchildren become bored with the present status quo. It would be more rational simply to stop supporting all of the contestants, but that would require too much common sense.