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To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our [More Ways to Give page.](https://www.commondreams.org/more-ways-donate) × - [Home](https://www.commondreams.org/) - [Latest News](https://www.commondreams.org/news) - [Opinion](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion) - [Climate](https://www.commondreams.org/climate) - [Economy](https://www.commondreams.org/economy) - [Politics](https://www.commondreams.org/politics) - [Rights & Justice](https://www.commondreams.org/rights-justice) - [War & Peace](https://www.commondreams.org/war-peace) - [Progressive Newswire](https://www.commondreams.org/newswire) - [Further](https://www.commondreams.org/further) - [NEWSLETTER SIGNUP](https://www.commondreams.org/newsletter) - [About Us](https://www.commondreams.org/about-us) - [Our Team](https://www.commondreams.org/our-team) - [Manage Your Donation](https://www.commondreams.org/manage-your-donation) - [More Ways to Donate](https://www.commondreams.org/more-ways-donate) - [Contact Us](https://www.commondreams.org/contact-us) \+ [LATEST NEWS](https://www.commondreams.org/news)[OPINION](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion)[CLIMATE](https://www.commondreams.org/climate)[ECONOMY](https://www.commondreams.org/economy) [POLITICS](https://www.commondreams.org/politics) [RIGHTS & JUSTICE](https://www.commondreams.org/rights-justice)[WAR & PEACE](https://www.commondreams.org/war-peace) [NEWSLETTER SIGNUP](https://www.commondreams.org/newsletter) [LATEST NEWS](https://www.commondreams.org/news) [OPINION](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion) [NEWSLETTER SIGNUP](https://www.commondreams.org/newsletter) [To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.](https://www.commondreams.org/ "Common Dreams")   ## SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER ### Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox. 5 \#000000 \#FFFFFF 1. [HOME](https://www.commondreams.org/)\> 2. [Opinion](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion)\> 3. [9-11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/9-11)\>  Afghan children look on as a US soldier from the Provincial Reconstruction team (PRT) Steel Warriors patrols in the mountains of Nuristan Province on December 19, 2009. (Photo: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty Images) # \#NeverForget the War in Afghanistan ## Let’s remember: the only reason U.S. troops are dying in Afghanistan is because they are deployed to Afghanistan [Sonali Kolhatkar](https://www.commondreams.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar) Sep 13, 2019[Truthdig](https://www.truthdig.org/) [Opinion](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion)[War & Peace](https://www.commondreams.org/war-peace) Sep 13, 2019 When President [Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) announced this week that a highly anticipated peace deal with the [Taliban](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/taliban) was dead, Afghans [braced for more violence](https://www.apnews.com/d619f2a9fd3b47fa812d707fafd5f146). Their fears were realized as [fresh fighting broke out](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-security/fighting-picks-up-in-afghanistan-after-talks-collapse-idUSKCN1VW14C) immediately between Taliban forces and U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. With little remaining incentive to taper off the violent attacks, the Taliban have once more unleashed the full force of their ferocity in order to take over Afghanistan. Nearly 18 years after the U.S. began its war, Afghanistan remains mired in unending violence. Taliban forces had been marking their participation in peace talks with a relentless series of deadly attacks all along while their representatives were meeting with U.S. officials in Doha, [Qatar](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/qatar). Presumably the militant organization was leveraging its capability for violence as a negotiating tactic with U.S. officials. RECOMMENDED... [](https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-toddler-tortured) ## [‘A Revolting Moral Outrage’: Israeli Soldiers Reportedly Torture Gaza Toddler](https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-toddler-tortured) [](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/apparently-i-m-an-idiot-trump-supporter) ## [‘Apparently, I’m an Idiot’: A Trump Voter’s Confession](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/apparently-i-m-an-idiot-trump-supporter) But they hadn’t counted on the fickle nature of an unpredictable U.S. president whose seat-of-the-pants foreign policy is driven more by ego and whim than by facts. Trump cited the [killing of a U.S. soldier](https://apnews.com/874989f36e364304b757186340dc9e6d) during a recent Taliban attack as a reason for ending the peace talks. He went as far as announcing [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992) last Saturday that he had planned to host on Sunday Taliban representatives and Afghan President [Ashraf Ghani](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/ashraf-ghani) at Camp David, but that after the Taliban’s attack, he “immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.” While many politicians and media pundits fixated on the audacity of inviting the Taliban onto U.S. soil--and days before the anniversary of the [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/911) attacks at no less a sacrosanct space than Camp David--the real question was why Trump felt that this latest troop casualty was a deal-breaker. Thirty-four-year-old [Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/pentagon-identifies-soldier-killed-in-afghanistan/index.html), a Puerto Rican service member of the [U.S. military](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/us-military), was the 16th American soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Secretary of State [Mike Pompeo](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/08/758758163/pompeo-on-ending-u-s-taliban-talks-president-trump-ultimately-made-the-decision) said in an interview on Sunday, “It’s not appropriate \[the Taliban\] killed an American. And it made no sense for the Taliban to be rewarded for that kind of bad behavior.” Except that the Taliban had been engaging in such behavior for months now. In late June [two U.S. soldiers were killed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/afghanistan-american-soldiers-killed.html) in a firefight with Taliban forces in Uruzgan province just a few days before a round of peace talks took place. Soon after those talks, another U.S. soldier was killed in a Taliban attack in Wardak Province. That event also did not dampen U.S. officials’ hopes for a deal, as special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad continued his plans days later to travel to Afghanistan and then Doha to resume talks with the Taliban. ## SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER ### Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox. subscribe below True True So what changed? Did Ortiz’s life mean so much to President Trump that he suddenly began caring about the violence facing American soldiers in Afghanistan and decided not to reward the Taliban with a peace deal? Such logic is hardly likely, not just because Trump has revealed himself to be utterly lacking in empathy (especially toward Puerto Ricans), but because if the president wanted to safeguard the lives of U.S. soldiers, withdrawing them from Afghanistan would be the most direct way forward. Simply put, the reason American troops are dying in Afghanistan is because they are deployed to Afghanistan. Therefore, the best way to immunize soldiers from a violent death at the hands of the Taliban is to withdraw them from Afghanistan altogether. Reports suggest that his former national security adviser [John Bolton](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/10/trump-ousts-john-bolton-as-national-security-adviser-1488093) tried to dissuade Trump by planting negative stories in the press over his opposition to signing a deal with the Taliban. Some commentators have [expressed relief](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/trump-fired-bolton-before-he-started-a-war-be-grateful-column/2277845001/) that the ultra-hawkish Bolton was ousted from the White House before be could start a war. But it appears as though, when it came to Afghanistan, he succeeded in keeping an existing war going. The [Afghan war](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghan-war) has been going on for so long that perhaps we have forgotten why U.S. troops were deployed in the first place. With the commemoration this week of the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, many Americans may assume that we launched a war in Afghanistan to retaliate against the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Broadly speaking, that sentiment is correct--it was essentially a war of revenge. By that measure, have we punished Afghan civilians enough? More than 30,000 Afghan civilians--none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and who were themselves being held hostage by the Pakistani-backed Taliban--have been killed since the first bombs dropped on Oct. 7, 2001. The rate of death has not tapered over the years. In fact, 2018 was the worst year on record for Afghan civilian deaths since 2001, with 3,804 people being killed, 927 of them children. And this year, civilian deaths at the hands of [U.S. forces and their Afghan allies](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-united-nations.html) surpassed the number killed by the Taliban. Our war has cost the Afghan people more than ten times the number of deaths than al-Qaida cost the U.S. on 9/11. While politicians and others blithely claim to \#NeverForget the deaths of thousands of innocent American lives, we have not only forgotten about the Afghan lives lost at our hands, but we have rarely, if ever, allowed their deaths to enter into our collective public consciousness. Trump has declared the Afghan peace deal “[dead](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/trump-afghanistan.html).” Given the unpredictability of this president, that may not be the last word on the matter, as we have seen in other foreign policy hot zones such as [North Korea](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/north-korea). But had the deal gone through, would it have actually led to peace for the people of Afghanistan? Sadly, that aspect of the war has been of the least importance to negotiating parties. Some Afghans were [even relieved](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/asia/taliban-talks-afghanistan-trump.html) the deal was over. One survivor of the same Taliban bombing that killed Ortiz told The [New York Times](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/new-york-times): “It’s always the poor people who are stepped on and killed. ... Nobody cares about us--not Trump, not our own government.” Had the deal gone through, it would have left military power and political control of large parts of the country in the hands of a violent, fundamentalist faction that knows nothing about running a society (except in the image of a misogynist form of [Sharia law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)) and everything about guerrilla warfare. Just as the U.S. was never truly interested in the welfare of civilians in wartime, it has shown no interest in civilian safety under the auspices of a peace deal. The fight for real peace is and always will be left in the hands of the beleaguered Afghan civilian population. Had U.S. troops begun withdrawing, we would have seen an end to direct American participation in a brutal and deadly war, but the legacy of U.S. violence would have remained intact in the country. For now, Afghans will continue to face attacks from both the Taliban and the American war machine. ## [An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder](https://www.commondreams.org/message-from-common-dreams) | | | |---|---| | Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. **That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done.** Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. **Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support.** That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. ****Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams?**** Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. \- Craig Brown, Co-founder | | © 2023 TruthDig [Sonali Kolhatkar](https://www.commondreams.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar) Sonali Kolhatkar is currently the racial justice editor at YES! Media and a writing fellow with Independent Media Institute. She was previously a weekly columnist for Truthdig.com. She is also the host and creator of Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. Sonali won First Place at the Los Angeles Press Club Annual Awards for Best Election Commentary in 2016. She also won numerous awards including Best TV Anchor from the LA Press Club and has also been nominated as Best Radio Anchor 4 years in a row. She is the author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, and the co-Director of the non-profit group, Afghan Women's Mission. She has a Master's in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from The University of Texas at Austin. Watch her 2014 Tedx talk, My journey from astrophysicist to radio host. She can be reached at www.sonalikolhatkar.com [Full Bio \>](https://www.commondreams.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar) [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/9-11)[afghanistan](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghanistan)[mike pompeo](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/mike-pompeo)[war on terror](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/war-on-terror) When President [Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) announced this week that a highly anticipated peace deal with the [Taliban](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/taliban) was dead, Afghans [braced for more violence](https://www.apnews.com/d619f2a9fd3b47fa812d707fafd5f146). Their fears were realized as [fresh fighting broke out](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-security/fighting-picks-up-in-afghanistan-after-talks-collapse-idUSKCN1VW14C) immediately between Taliban forces and U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. With little remaining incentive to taper off the violent attacks, the Taliban have once more unleashed the full force of their ferocity in order to take over Afghanistan. Nearly 18 years after the U.S. began its war, Afghanistan remains mired in unending violence. Taliban forces had been marking their participation in peace talks with a relentless series of deadly attacks all along while their representatives were meeting with U.S. officials in Doha, [Qatar](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/qatar). Presumably the militant organization was leveraging its capability for violence as a negotiating tactic with U.S. officials. But they hadn’t counted on the fickle nature of an unpredictable U.S. president whose seat-of-the-pants foreign policy is driven more by ego and whim than by facts. Trump cited the [killing of a U.S. soldier](https://apnews.com/874989f36e364304b757186340dc9e6d) during a recent Taliban attack as a reason for ending the peace talks. He went as far as announcing [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992) last Saturday that he had planned to host on Sunday Taliban representatives and Afghan President [Ashraf Ghani](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/ashraf-ghani) at Camp David, but that after the Taliban’s attack, he “immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.” While many politicians and media pundits fixated on the audacity of inviting the Taliban onto U.S. soil--and days before the anniversary of the [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/911) attacks at no less a sacrosanct space than Camp David--the real question was why Trump felt that this latest troop casualty was a deal-breaker. Thirty-four-year-old [Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/pentagon-identifies-soldier-killed-in-afghanistan/index.html), a Puerto Rican service member of the [U.S. military](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/us-military), was the 16th American soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Secretary of State [Mike Pompeo](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/08/758758163/pompeo-on-ending-u-s-taliban-talks-president-trump-ultimately-made-the-decision) said in an interview on Sunday, “It’s not appropriate \[the Taliban\] killed an American. And it made no sense for the Taliban to be rewarded for that kind of bad behavior.” Except that the Taliban had been engaging in such behavior for months now. In late June [two U.S. soldiers were killed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/afghanistan-american-soldiers-killed.html) in a firefight with Taliban forces in Uruzgan province just a few days before a round of peace talks took place. Soon after those talks, another U.S. soldier was killed in a Taliban attack in Wardak Province. That event also did not dampen U.S. officials’ hopes for a deal, as special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad continued his plans days later to travel to Afghanistan and then Doha to resume talks with the Taliban. So what changed? Did Ortiz’s life mean so much to President Trump that he suddenly began caring about the violence facing American soldiers in Afghanistan and decided not to reward the Taliban with a peace deal? Such logic is hardly likely, not just because Trump has revealed himself to be utterly lacking in empathy (especially toward Puerto Ricans), but because if the president wanted to safeguard the lives of U.S. soldiers, withdrawing them from Afghanistan would be the most direct way forward. Simply put, the reason American troops are dying in Afghanistan is because they are deployed to Afghanistan. Therefore, the best way to immunize soldiers from a violent death at the hands of the Taliban is to withdraw them from Afghanistan altogether. Reports suggest that his former national security adviser [John Bolton](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/10/trump-ousts-john-bolton-as-national-security-adviser-1488093) tried to dissuade Trump by planting negative stories in the press over his opposition to signing a deal with the Taliban. Some commentators have [expressed relief](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/trump-fired-bolton-before-he-started-a-war-be-grateful-column/2277845001/) that the ultra-hawkish Bolton was ousted from the White House before be could start a war. But it appears as though, when it came to Afghanistan, he succeeded in keeping an existing war going. The [Afghan war](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghan-war) has been going on for so long that perhaps we have forgotten why U.S. troops were deployed in the first place. With the commemoration this week of the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, many Americans may assume that we launched a war in Afghanistan to retaliate against the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Broadly speaking, that sentiment is correct--it was essentially a war of revenge. By that measure, have we punished Afghan civilians enough? More than 30,000 Afghan civilians--none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and who were themselves being held hostage by the Pakistani-backed Taliban--have been killed since the first bombs dropped on Oct. 7, 2001. The rate of death has not tapered over the years. In fact, 2018 was the worst year on record for Afghan civilian deaths since 2001, with 3,804 people being killed, 927 of them children. And this year, civilian deaths at the hands of [U.S. forces and their Afghan allies](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-united-nations.html) surpassed the number killed by the Taliban. Our war has cost the Afghan people more than ten times the number of deaths than al-Qaida cost the U.S. on 9/11. While politicians and others blithely claim to \#NeverForget the deaths of thousands of innocent American lives, we have not only forgotten about the Afghan lives lost at our hands, but we have rarely, if ever, allowed their deaths to enter into our collective public consciousness. Trump has declared the Afghan peace deal “[dead](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/trump-afghanistan.html).” Given the unpredictability of this president, that may not be the last word on the matter, as we have seen in other foreign policy hot zones such as [North Korea](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/north-korea). But had the deal gone through, would it have actually led to peace for the people of Afghanistan? Sadly, that aspect of the war has been of the least importance to negotiating parties. Some Afghans were [even relieved](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/asia/taliban-talks-afghanistan-trump.html) the deal was over. One survivor of the same Taliban bombing that killed Ortiz told The [New York Times](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/new-york-times): “It’s always the poor people who are stepped on and killed. ... Nobody cares about us--not Trump, not our own government.” Had the deal gone through, it would have left military power and political control of large parts of the country in the hands of a violent, fundamentalist faction that knows nothing about running a society (except in the image of a misogynist form of [Sharia law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)) and everything about guerrilla warfare. Just as the U.S. was never truly interested in the welfare of civilians in wartime, it has shown no interest in civilian safety under the auspices of a peace deal. The fight for real peace is and always will be left in the hands of the beleaguered Afghan civilian population. Had U.S. troops begun withdrawing, we would have seen an end to direct American participation in a brutal and deadly war, but the legacy of U.S. violence would have remained intact in the country. For now, Afghans will continue to face attacks from both the Taliban and the American war machine. [Sonali Kolhatkar](https://www.commondreams.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar) Sonali Kolhatkar is currently the racial justice editor at YES! Media and a writing fellow with Independent Media Institute. She was previously a weekly columnist for Truthdig.com. She is also the host and creator of Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. Sonali won First Place at the Los Angeles Press Club Annual Awards for Best Election Commentary in 2016. She also won numerous awards including Best TV Anchor from the LA Press Club and has also been nominated as Best Radio Anchor 4 years in a row. She is the author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, and the co-Director of the non-profit group, Afghan Women's Mission. She has a Master's in Astronomy from the University of Hawaii, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from The University of Texas at Austin. Watch her 2014 Tedx talk, My journey from astrophysicist to radio host. She can be reached at www.sonalikolhatkar.com [Full Bio \>](https://www.commondreams.org/author/sonali-kolhatkar) When President [Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) announced this week that a highly anticipated peace deal with the [Taliban](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/taliban) was dead, Afghans [braced for more violence](https://www.apnews.com/d619f2a9fd3b47fa812d707fafd5f146). Their fears were realized as [fresh fighting broke out](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-security/fighting-picks-up-in-afghanistan-after-talks-collapse-idUSKCN1VW14C) immediately between Taliban forces and U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. With little remaining incentive to taper off the violent attacks, the Taliban have once more unleashed the full force of their ferocity in order to take over Afghanistan. Nearly 18 years after the U.S. began its war, Afghanistan remains mired in unending violence. Taliban forces had been marking their participation in peace talks with a relentless series of deadly attacks all along while their representatives were meeting with U.S. officials in Doha, [Qatar](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/qatar). Presumably the militant organization was leveraging its capability for violence as a negotiating tactic with U.S. officials. But they hadn’t counted on the fickle nature of an unpredictable U.S. president whose seat-of-the-pants foreign policy is driven more by ego and whim than by facts. Trump cited the [killing of a U.S. soldier](https://apnews.com/874989f36e364304b757186340dc9e6d) during a recent Taliban attack as a reason for ending the peace talks. He went as far as announcing [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992) last Saturday that he had planned to host on Sunday Taliban representatives and Afghan President [Ashraf Ghani](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/ashraf-ghani) at Camp David, but that after the Taliban’s attack, he “immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.” While many politicians and media pundits fixated on the audacity of inviting the Taliban onto U.S. soil--and days before the anniversary of the [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/911) attacks at no less a sacrosanct space than Camp David--the real question was why Trump felt that this latest troop casualty was a deal-breaker. Thirty-four-year-old [Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/pentagon-identifies-soldier-killed-in-afghanistan/index.html), a Puerto Rican service member of the [U.S. military](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/us-military), was the 16th American soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Secretary of State [Mike Pompeo](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/08/758758163/pompeo-on-ending-u-s-taliban-talks-president-trump-ultimately-made-the-decision) said in an interview on Sunday, “It’s not appropriate \[the Taliban\] killed an American. And it made no sense for the Taliban to be rewarded for that kind of bad behavior.” Except that the Taliban had been engaging in such behavior for months now. In late June [two U.S. soldiers were killed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/afghanistan-american-soldiers-killed.html) in a firefight with Taliban forces in Uruzgan province just a few days before a round of peace talks took place. Soon after those talks, another U.S. soldier was killed in a Taliban attack in Wardak Province. That event also did not dampen U.S. officials’ hopes for a deal, as special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad continued his plans days later to travel to Afghanistan and then Doha to resume talks with the Taliban. So what changed? Did Ortiz’s life mean so much to President Trump that he suddenly began caring about the violence facing American soldiers in Afghanistan and decided not to reward the Taliban with a peace deal? Such logic is hardly likely, not just because Trump has revealed himself to be utterly lacking in empathy (especially toward Puerto Ricans), but because if the president wanted to safeguard the lives of U.S. soldiers, withdrawing them from Afghanistan would be the most direct way forward. Simply put, the reason American troops are dying in Afghanistan is because they are deployed to Afghanistan. Therefore, the best way to immunize soldiers from a violent death at the hands of the Taliban is to withdraw them from Afghanistan altogether. Reports suggest that his former national security adviser [John Bolton](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/10/trump-ousts-john-bolton-as-national-security-adviser-1488093) tried to dissuade Trump by planting negative stories in the press over his opposition to signing a deal with the Taliban. Some commentators have [expressed relief](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/trump-fired-bolton-before-he-started-a-war-be-grateful-column/2277845001/) that the ultra-hawkish Bolton was ousted from the White House before be could start a war. But it appears as though, when it came to Afghanistan, he succeeded in keeping an existing war going. The [Afghan war](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghan-war) has been going on for so long that perhaps we have forgotten why U.S. troops were deployed in the first place. With the commemoration this week of the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, many Americans may assume that we launched a war in Afghanistan to retaliate against the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Broadly speaking, that sentiment is correct--it was essentially a war of revenge. By that measure, have we punished Afghan civilians enough? More than 30,000 Afghan civilians--none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and who were themselves being held hostage by the Pakistani-backed Taliban--have been killed since the first bombs dropped on Oct. 7, 2001. The rate of death has not tapered over the years. In fact, 2018 was the worst year on record for Afghan civilian deaths since 2001, with 3,804 people being killed, 927 of them children. And this year, civilian deaths at the hands of [U.S. forces and their Afghan allies](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-united-nations.html) surpassed the number killed by the Taliban. Our war has cost the Afghan people more than ten times the number of deaths than al-Qaida cost the U.S. on 9/11. While politicians and others blithely claim to \#NeverForget the deaths of thousands of innocent American lives, we have not only forgotten about the Afghan lives lost at our hands, but we have rarely, if ever, allowed their deaths to enter into our collective public consciousness. Trump has declared the Afghan peace deal “[dead](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/trump-afghanistan.html).” Given the unpredictability of this president, that may not be the last word on the matter, as we have seen in other foreign policy hot zones such as [North Korea](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/north-korea). But had the deal gone through, would it have actually led to peace for the people of Afghanistan? Sadly, that aspect of the war has been of the least importance to negotiating parties. Some Afghans were [even relieved](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/asia/taliban-talks-afghanistan-trump.html) the deal was over. One survivor of the same Taliban bombing that killed Ortiz told The [New York Times](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/new-york-times): “It’s always the poor people who are stepped on and killed. ... Nobody cares about us--not Trump, not our own government.” Had the deal gone through, it would have left military power and political control of large parts of the country in the hands of a violent, fundamentalist faction that knows nothing about running a society (except in the image of a misogynist form of [Sharia law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)) and everything about guerrilla warfare. Just as the U.S. was never truly interested in the welfare of civilians in wartime, it has shown no interest in civilian safety under the auspices of a peace deal. The fight for real peace is and always will be left in the hands of the beleaguered Afghan civilian population. Had U.S. troops begun withdrawing, we would have seen an end to direct American participation in a brutal and deadly war, but the legacy of U.S. violence would have remained intact in the country. For now, Afghans will continue to face attacks from both the Taliban and the American war machine. [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/9-11)[afghanistan](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghanistan)[mike pompeo](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/mike-pompeo)[war on terror](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/war-on-terror) ## SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER ### Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox. subscribe below True True Follow Us **We've had enough.** The 1% own and operate the corporate media. 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Thank you.** LATEST NEWS [](https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant) ## [Nuclear Plants ‘Must Never Be Attacked,’ Says Watchdog as Iran Reports US-Israeli Strike at Bushehr Facility](https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant) ### The International Atomic Energy Agency warned of “the paramount importance of adhering to the seven pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during a conflict.” [Julia Conley](https://www.commondreams.org/author/julia-conley) Apr 04, 2026 The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday demanded "maximum military restraint" from the US and Israel as it confirmed [reports](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/4/iaea-says-projectile-hits-near-irans-bushehr-nuclear-plant-killing-one) that strikes had targeted a location close to Iran's Bushehr [Nuclear Power](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/nuclear-power) Plant, killing at least one person. In a [statement](https://x.com/iaeaorg/status/2040360500047819000) released via [social media](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/social-media), the IAEA relayed a message from Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who expressed "deep concern about the reported incident." [Keep Reading](https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-bushehr-nuclear-power-plant) [News](https://www.commondreams.org/news) [Iran War](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/iran-war) [](https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-budget) ## [As Trump Pushes ‘Polluters First Agenda,’ 2027 Budget Blasted as ‘Bloody New Deal’](https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-budget) ### “This proposed budget is exactly what America does NOT need when facing rising energy bills, more frequent extreme weather, and rising insurance rates,” said one climate campaigner. [Jessica Corbett](https://www.commondreams.org/author/jessica-corbett) Apr 03, 2026 US President [Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) continued his "[war on science](https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-attack-on-science)" on Friday with his [budget](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/budget) request for the 2027 fiscal year, which critics have denounced as "[grossly irresponsible](https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-2027-military-budget)" for its proposed \$1.5 trillion in [military spending](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/military-spending) and "[a moral obscenity](https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-2027-budget)" because of its cuts to social and scientific programs. In the lead-up to Trump's request to the Republican-controlled Congress, as he and Israel waged war on Iran, Sean Manning, a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow in the [Union of Concerned Scientists](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/union-of-concerned-scientists)' Global Security Program, [wrote](https://blog.ucs.org/author/sean-manning/) that "if this Bloody New Deal actually passes, it could give unparalleled increases in financial power to defense contractors and support for [the political work they already do to influence Congress](https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?Ind=D)." 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[Brett Wilkins](https://www.commondreams.org/author/brett-wilkins) Apr 03, 2026 The University of [Washington](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/washington) has removed a professor from his role as director of its Middle East Center after he criticized the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and condemned [Zionism](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/zionism), the settler-colonial movement for Jewish [hegemony](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/hegemony) in [Palestine](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/palestine). Aria Fani, who will remain an associate professor at UW’s Jackson School of International Studies, [told](https://web.archive.org/web/20260403133206/https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uw-professor-removed-as-director-of-middle-east-center/) The Seattle Times on Friday that new interim widirector Daniel Hoffman told him last week he was fired from his leadership role at the Middle East Center. 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When President [Donald Trump](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/donald-trump) announced this week that a highly anticipated peace deal with the [Taliban](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/taliban) was dead, Afghans [braced for more violence](https://www.apnews.com/d619f2a9fd3b47fa812d707fafd5f146). Their fears were realized as [fresh fighting broke out](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-security/fighting-picks-up-in-afghanistan-after-talks-collapse-idUSKCN1VW14C) immediately between Taliban forces and U.S.-backed Afghan government forces. With little remaining incentive to taper off the violent attacks, the Taliban have once more unleashed the full force of their ferocity in order to take over Afghanistan. Nearly 18 years after the U.S. began its war, Afghanistan remains mired in unending violence. Taliban forces had been marking their participation in peace talks with a relentless series of deadly attacks all along while their representatives were meeting with U.S. officials in Doha, [Qatar](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/qatar). Presumably the militant organization was leveraging its capability for violence as a negotiating tactic with U.S. officials. RECOMMENDED... [](https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-toddler-tortured) [](https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/apparently-i-m-an-idiot-trump-supporter) But they hadn’t counted on the fickle nature of an unpredictable U.S. president whose seat-of-the-pants foreign policy is driven more by ego and whim than by facts. Trump cited the [killing of a U.S. soldier](https://apnews.com/874989f36e364304b757186340dc9e6d) during a recent Taliban attack as a reason for ending the peace talks. He went as far as announcing [on Twitter](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992) last Saturday that he had planned to host on Sunday Taliban representatives and Afghan President [Ashraf Ghani](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/ashraf-ghani) at Camp David, but that after the Taliban’s attack, he “immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.” While many politicians and media pundits fixated on the audacity of inviting the Taliban onto U.S. soil--and days before the anniversary of the [9/11](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/911) attacks at no less a sacrosanct space than Camp David--the real question was why Trump felt that this latest troop casualty was a deal-breaker. Thirty-four-year-old [Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/politics/pentagon-identifies-soldier-killed-in-afghanistan/index.html), a Puerto Rican service member of the [U.S. military](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/us-military), was the 16th American soldier to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Secretary of State [Mike Pompeo](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/08/758758163/pompeo-on-ending-u-s-taliban-talks-president-trump-ultimately-made-the-decision) said in an interview on Sunday, “It’s not appropriate \[the Taliban\] killed an American. And it made no sense for the Taliban to be rewarded for that kind of bad behavior.” Except that the Taliban had been engaging in such behavior for months now. In late June [two U.S. soldiers were killed](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/asia/afghanistan-american-soldiers-killed.html) in a firefight with Taliban forces in Uruzgan province just a few days before a round of peace talks took place. Soon after those talks, another U.S. soldier was killed in a Taliban attack in Wardak Province. That event also did not dampen U.S. officials’ hopes for a deal, as special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad continued his plans days later to travel to Afghanistan and then Doha to resume talks with the Taliban. So what changed? Did Ortiz’s life mean so much to President Trump that he suddenly began caring about the violence facing American soldiers in Afghanistan and decided not to reward the Taliban with a peace deal? Such logic is hardly likely, not just because Trump has revealed himself to be utterly lacking in empathy (especially toward Puerto Ricans), but because if the president wanted to safeguard the lives of U.S. soldiers, withdrawing them from Afghanistan would be the most direct way forward. Simply put, the reason American troops are dying in Afghanistan is because they are deployed to Afghanistan. Therefore, the best way to immunize soldiers from a violent death at the hands of the Taliban is to withdraw them from Afghanistan altogether. Reports suggest that his former national security adviser [John Bolton](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/10/trump-ousts-john-bolton-as-national-security-adviser-1488093) tried to dissuade Trump by planting negative stories in the press over his opposition to signing a deal with the Taliban. Some commentators have [expressed relief](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/11/trump-fired-bolton-before-he-started-a-war-be-grateful-column/2277845001/) that the ultra-hawkish Bolton was ousted from the White House before be could start a war. But it appears as though, when it came to Afghanistan, he succeeded in keeping an existing war going. The [Afghan war](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/afghan-war) has been going on for so long that perhaps we have forgotten why U.S. troops were deployed in the first place. With the commemoration this week of the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, many Americans may assume that we launched a war in Afghanistan to retaliate against the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Broadly speaking, that sentiment is correct--it was essentially a war of revenge. By that measure, have we punished Afghan civilians enough? More than 30,000 Afghan civilians--none of whom had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks and who were themselves being held hostage by the Pakistani-backed Taliban--have been killed since the first bombs dropped on Oct. 7, 2001. The rate of death has not tapered over the years. In fact, 2018 was the worst year on record for Afghan civilian deaths since 2001, with 3,804 people being killed, 927 of them children. And this year, civilian deaths at the hands of [U.S. forces and their Afghan allies](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/24/world/asia/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-united-nations.html) surpassed the number killed by the Taliban. Our war has cost the Afghan people more than ten times the number of deaths than al-Qaida cost the U.S. on 9/11. While politicians and others blithely claim to \#NeverForget the deaths of thousands of innocent American lives, we have not only forgotten about the Afghan lives lost at our hands, but we have rarely, if ever, allowed their deaths to enter into our collective public consciousness. Trump has declared the Afghan peace deal “[dead](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/politics/trump-afghanistan.html).” Given the unpredictability of this president, that may not be the last word on the matter, as we have seen in other foreign policy hot zones such as [North Korea](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/north-korea). But had the deal gone through, would it have actually led to peace for the people of Afghanistan? Sadly, that aspect of the war has been of the least importance to negotiating parties. Some Afghans were [even relieved](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/world/asia/taliban-talks-afghanistan-trump.html) the deal was over. One survivor of the same Taliban bombing that killed Ortiz told The [New York Times](https://www.commondreams.org/tag/new-york-times): “It’s always the poor people who are stepped on and killed. ... Nobody cares about us--not Trump, not our own government.” Had the deal gone through, it would have left military power and political control of large parts of the country in the hands of a violent, fundamentalist faction that knows nothing about running a society (except in the image of a misogynist form of [Sharia law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia)) and everything about guerrilla warfare. Just as the U.S. was never truly interested in the welfare of civilians in wartime, it has shown no interest in civilian safety under the auspices of a peace deal. The fight for real peace is and always will be left in the hands of the beleaguered Afghan civilian population. Had U.S. troops begun withdrawing, we would have seen an end to direct American participation in a brutal and deadly war, but the legacy of U.S. violence would have remained intact in the country. For now, Afghans will continue to face attacks from both the Taliban and the American war machine.