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10 Good Reasons to get Out of Afghanistan

8 October marks the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan.

Protest Groups put forward 10 reasons why foreign forces ought to get out of the war-torn country:

"1. Life is getting worse for most Afghans under occupation. There are still millions of Afghan people in refugee camps in Pakistan and thousands have been internally displaced. Life expectancy is 43 years. Access to water is 31% of households. Adult literacy is just 24%. Some 50% of children are malnourished. Far more is spent on the war and the military than on reconstruction.

2. More and more people are dying. No one keeps track of the number of Afghan dead, but it numbers in the tens of thousands since 2001. Eleven Australian soldiers and more than 1000 US and NATO soldiers have been killed in the war and occupation. There are weekly reports of occupation forces and US air strikes killing civilians. The Taliban is using suicide bomber to do the same. The carnage is growing.

3. The coalition forces are spreading the war into Pakistan. Military raids and unmanned drones have taken the war into the North-West Frontier regions of Pakistan. Under US pressure the Pakistan army has attacked the Swat valley and displaced some 2 million people.

4. The war has cost us billions over the past 8 years. The Rudd government has budgeted the Afghanistan war to cost $1.3 billion in 2009-10, a 50% increase over previous years along with another 500 troops. There is no separate budget for aid to the Afghans.

5. We were told that the war in Afghanistan would liberate women. Women’s lives have not improved. Death in childbirth is rising. less than a third of Afghan girls are in school and less than 10% can read and write. In a bid for fundamentalist support, the Karzai government has even passed a law allowing rape in marriage. Women are still subject to high rates of physical abuse and limited access to jobs even in the cities.

6. This war cannot be 'won' by the occupiers. The failure of the Karzai government and foreign aid to deliver any real improvement to the people of Afghanistan is forcing them to look to the Taliban and war lords.. More foreign troops and more helicopters will not change that equation as retired generals in the UK and US also admit. They have called the war “unwinnable”, not least because of the cost of lives and weapons. Afghanistan is called the “graveyard of empires” because its people have fiercely defended their independence.

7. Kevin Rudd claims the war is about 'combating terrorism'. But there was no terrorist threat to Australia before the war in Afghanistan, or before the war in Iraq in 2003. Strategic analysts like conservative Huge Whitepoint out that Australian support for America’s war in Muslim countries has made us a target.

8. The majority of Australians want the troops to leave. An Age/Nielsen poll in March revealed 65% opposed Kevin Rudd's decision to send more troops there and 51% opposed the war outright. A majority of Americans – 54% - also now oppose the war according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released in August, 2009.

9. The war is destroying the country. The Hamid Karzai government, mired in corruption, is prepared to do deals with the Taliban and war lords to try to hang onto power. Opium cultivation and addiction has massively increased, encouraged by the warlords and the Taliban. Ethnic divisions fostered by the Occupation is dividing people as never before and threatening ethnic strife.

10. The majority of Afghans do not want the war and do not want occupying forces in their country. Malalai Joya, an Afghan woman MP, told meetings around Australia in July that the Afghan people have two enemies: the fundamentalists and the occupation forces. She said that they can easily deal with the fundamentalists, but not with an occupying force which is giving support to such reactionaries.. She urged Australians to pressure the government to remove the foreign forces."

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