Ten Years Later: Still Waging War in Afghanistan

By JUDI CHENG

October 7, 2011 was the tenth anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The U.S military and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a group of powerful countries, have about 130,000 troops from 49 countries in Afghanistan, according to the Huffington Post. Most of them are from the United States.  A report by the U.S. Geological survey shows much of the world’s remaining oil and natural gas reserves is found in this region.

Tens of thousands of Afghani people have been killed since the start of the war with more than half killed directly as a result of U.S. and NATO military actions, according to Human Rights Watch and the Associated Press. Night raids, conducted regularly by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghan villages, result in unfair detentions (imprisonment) and widespread abuse.

“Ten years of war has not made Afghanistan safer for anybody except the fundamentalist warlords in the Afghan government, and the Taliban,” said Reena, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).

IndyKids talked to an organizer from Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER), a coalition of community organizations around the country that was formed after the events of September 11, 2001. “People in the U.S. must continue to demand that U.S. and foreign troops leave Afghanistan so that Afghans can have sovereignty and peace, just like all people,” said Sarah Sloan of ANSWER.

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Taliban: A strict Islamic group that controlled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001.