Dear Mr. President: The War Against Afghan Children

Dear Mr. President,
On February 8, the U.S. military ‘strongly rejected’ the UN’s report on children killed in Afghanistan, claiming it was “categorically unfounded.” The report documented hundreds of children killed over the past 4 years by the U.S. military due to a “lack of precautionary measures and indiscriminate use of force.” This is your war, Mr. President, and these dead children are your responsibility. You could have ended the killing 4 years ago but expanded it instead. The war has brought nothing but misery, hardship and death to Afghanistan; their infant mortality is 122 per 1,000 (Cuba’s is 4.8 per 1,000), their government spends, on average $46 per person per year on health care; their life expectancy is 49 years; their average schooling is 3.3 years. Every day more children are killed or maimed, more deformed babies born. There are reports of children as young as 9 or 10—both boys and girls—being raped and tortured by Afghan security forces (who we train and to whose atrocities we turn a blind eye). Occasionally, one of our own heroes is guilty of an atrocity, like Robert Bales who massacred 16 Afghan villagers in 2012, or the platoon from 5th Stryker Combat Brigade that randomly shot and killed Afghan civilians for sport in 2010. You were elected to end war, not institutionalize it. You were given a Nobel Peace Prize for furthering the cause of peace and you further only the cause of war. But war never stays ‘over there’—we are a more violent nation, a greater threat to world peace than a decade ago, we have many wounded among us—the 30,000 from Iraq, the 20,000 from Afghanistan—and of those exposed to DU, many have multiple medical problems (and like their predecessors in Vietnam, the VA provides scant help, denies their claims, denies that DU is the cause, even denies they have a medical problem). Children born to these vets have a much higher rate of birth defects as well: like Gerard Darren Matthew’s little girl who was born with only 3 fingers on one hand. There are other ways the war comes home, too: on Friday, Chicago announced the closure of 54 schools for lack of funds; Philadelphia is closing 23; Newark, Detroit and Washington have already closed a number of schools; Head Start eliminated 70,000 slots and other social programs are being cut back. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has requested an additional $200 million to rebuild Guantanamo prison. All wars are against the children and your dumb war, like Bush’s dumb war, is no exception.


Mohammed Salim, 10, rests in a Kabul, Afghanistan, hospital after having a leg amputated and being treated for other injuries. He was reportedly injured by a U.S. bombing. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)