3 Ways the Destructive War On Afghanistan Will Continue Post-2014

http://www.alternet.org/world/3-ways-destructive-war-afghanistan-will-continue-post-2014



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1. Special Operations Targeted Killings

In 2009, President Obama announced a “surge” for the Afghanistan war that would send 33,000 more troops to the country. A major part of the surge was an increase in the use of Special Operations Forces in the country, which are elite units tasked with hunting down suspected militants placed on their “kill lists.”

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2. Training of Afghan Forces

President Obama’s Rose Garden speech outlining the future of the Afghanistan mission indicated that the U.S. will continue to work with Afghan security forces. He said the U.S. troops will be “disrupting threats caused by al Qaeda, supporting Afghan security forces and giving the Afghan people the opportunity to succeed as they stand on their own.”

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3. Partnering With Militias

The third facet that will likely continue post-2014, as author Anand Gopal wrote in the New York Times recently, is that Special Ops forces, along with the CIA, will continue partnering with Afghan forces outside of the traditional security apparatus.

These militias are a key part of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. They exist solely because of the patronage of the U.S., though they often rely on drug money. In the course of their fight against the Taliban, they operate in ways that run roughshod over the rights of Afghan civilians. One militia leader Gopal writes about is a man known as Azizullah, who ordered his gunmen to drag two farmers under their car to Azizullah’s base.