15 years into the US-led occupation, the civilian death toll in Afghanistan continues to get worse, with the most recent UN Assistance Mission annual report showing 923 children, a record for the war, were killed in the last year, a 25% increase over the already large numbers in 2015.
Civilians have been getting killed at a staggering rate for years, ever-worsening figures driven by constant fighting in and around populated area, and what rights groups have repeatedly described as a lack of effort to avoid letting civilians get swept up in their endless war.
UN officials are blaming this most recent surge in civilian deaths on two things, an increase in foreign (read: US) airstrikes and an ever-growing array of mines, explosives, and general munitions scattered around the country by decades of war.
While a lot of the emphasis among Western officials was on the mines, and improvised explosives planted by rebels, the airstrikes have really been driving the death toll more significantly, with the number of civilians slain in airstrikes the highest since they started keeping track, and double that of the previous year.
This will give folks great insight and who is at blame and responsible.
Feb 7, 2017 The CIA & the Drug Trade
NOTE: This video was produced for BoilingFrogsPostcom on October 14, 2011. It is being made available in its entirety here for the first time.
Just as the British Empire was in part financed by their control of the opium trade through the British East India Company, so too has the CIA been found time after time to be at the heart of the modern international drug trade. From its very inception, the CIA has been embroiled in the murky underworld of drug trafficking.
https://youtu.be/vcp9bcypZo4
The withdrawal of US and other troops from Afghanistan meant that the only real force available to support the Afghan army was air power. Since the place was not abandoned, the number killed from the air, including those claimed to be civilians, inevitably increased.
Of course when it is abandoned, no doubt the locals’ll more than make up for the lack of foreign effort.