US War Machine Leaves Ugly Imprint in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/31

US War Machine Leaves Ugly Imprint in Afghanistan
Jon Queally, staff writer
Published on Monday, December 31, 2012 by Common Dreams

If only in a microcosm, a dispatch from a remote outpost in Afghanistan reveals the damage and dysfunction created by years of US occupation and how little regard western military forces have for local communities when a final determination is made that an outpost should be abandoned.

Reporting from Kunar province, the Guardian's Emma Graham-Harrison describes that following a recent midnight departure from a US military outpost that had existed for years, all that was left in the morning were "piles of equipment, an unpaid rent bill and a festering land dispute that threatens to undermine the Afghan government."

~snip~

At a separate base closing nearby, all that was left following the US departure was a land dispute that villagers warned would push neighbor against neighbor and some into the the welcoming arms of the Taliban.

With a planned drawdown scheduled for 2014, but with no signs of a significant peace agreement in Afghanistan, the reality of life on the ground in the shadow of war appears precarious at best for most Afghans.



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