Trump ‘Could Destroy Afghanistan, But Won’t’

Says by killing millions, war could be won in a week

President Trump claimed on Monday that he could win the Afghanistan War within a week, but that doing so would involve wiping Afghanistan off the Earth and killing 10 million people and “I don’t want to go that route.”

Trump made the comments in the context of a visit by Pakistan’s premier, and blaming Pakistan for being “subversive” and undermining the US war. He says now Pakistan is going to “help us out.”

Talk of “winning” a US war by way of genocide, however, shows a troubling view of how US conflicts are fought, as presumably in the 18+ years of Afghan War, simply exterminating all the Afghans was never raised as an actual option by any administration.

The option has clearly never been brought up by anyone else. President Trump seems to want to present his lack of genocide both as an excuse for not winning the plainly lost Afghan War, and something to his credit, that he resisted that path to victory.

Trump argued that the US is making progress in Afghanistan now, despite all indications being that the war continues to worsen. He provided no metrics, not indeed really could he have, since the Pentagon has dismissed al such metrics over the course of the war, and no longer keeps track of much of anything that was once lauded as potential signs of progress.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.