Juan Cole: 77 US troops Wounded in Truck Bombing; Top Reasons to leave Afghanistan

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77 US troops Wounded in Truck Bombing of Base in Wardak; Top Reasons US should get out of Afghanistan
Posted on 09/12/2011 by Juan


Never before in the Afghanistan War, the longest-running military conflict in US history, have so many US troops been wounded in one day. Some 5 Afghans were killed and some 77 American military personnel were wounded at a forward operating base in Wardak Province in the Pashtun south by a suicide bomber with a truck. Note that Wardak is not that far from Kabul, the capital, but even at this distance the government is unable to provide security. Most of the US wounded were only lightly so.

This incident inevitably leads to thoughts about whether we shouldn’t try to speed up the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Here are some of the top reasons the US should get out of of that country as soon as possible.

The US and NATO have come to be seen as armies of foreign occupation in some parts of the country, according to Turki al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence, who says the old Taliban of Mullah Omar are no longer the main issue: “… it is becoming more of a nationalist resistance movement to the presence of foreign troops.”

Former radicals also maintain that Afghans are fighting the US/ NATO troop presence now, and would put down their arms if the foreigners left.

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