“According to Die Welt, in the first three months of the year, American servicemen and their allies on the ground killed more civilians than both terrorist and rebel detachments operating in Afghanistan. As it’s been revealed by the UN mission in Afghanistan, the absolute majority of those deceased fell victims of US-coalition air strikes and ground operations. It’s also been added that in recent years the death toll among the civilian population of Afghanistan reached unprecedented numbers. Last year alone some 3804 civilians perished, with 7189 more suffering severe injuries. That’s an eleven percent increase over the previous year.
“As the above-mentioned German newspaper notes, ever since Donald Trump removed any restrictions on the course of actions that the Pentagon may choose to take in its attempts to take the Taliban down, the US military has started dropping bombs on Afghanistan like there’s no tomorrow.”
ashiftinconsciousness 
Afghanistan may well be the anvil upon which the imperial hammers fall only to shatter themselves. How these people stand up against imperial oppression, I will never understand, but it is likely that the “mighty” American military machine will find its demise here. When crushed by Soviet military boots they found a willing ally in America. Now that America has shown its true colors as another imperial power crushing Afghani hopes, perhaps Russia, or China, or another imperial power will arrive on the scene to crush the US military. What they do after, well, we already know the pattern, and so do the Afghans.
The war supporters in U.S. government drop bombs knowing they will only guarantee longer wars which will make billions more for their owners in the War Profiteer Industry. Plus, there’s the reverence for the terrorist state of Israel playing a part, such as in Syria. As long as the Saudi-U.S. Coalition continues fighting, Iran is kept busy. Israel drools over other people fighting their “enemies” and weakening them while they can concentrate on wiping out rock-throwing Palestinians to take over more of that country.
Yes, I know all of that… and maybe more. The life-long question for me has always been, and remains, what can “I” as an individual, do about all of that. Do I stop ‘listening’ to the pain? Do I stop feeling the sorrow of the world. Well, I cannot do that so I live in ‘pain amplifier’ as Frank Herbert would have termed it. Until people CHOOSE as INDIVIDUALS to eschew their violence, these bloody conflicts will continue. It isn’t the greed of the elites that I point the finger at but the lust for blood that drives individual Earthians. There is no collective fix for this, it has to be individual choice now.
Wow, I’d written a long reply to you and my iPad suddenly went blank. It wiped out the reply. Take two:
I hear what you’re saying, Sha’Tara. Sadly, most people don’t. I don’t know what it will take for a majority of people to see that we’re insanely sick as a society and getting sicker.
During the Reagan Inc. Regime I’d put down a book by Frank Herbert or Carlos Castaneda or Herman Hesse and look around at what was going on. I’d feel sick and sometimes just want to go back to reading or plug in my guitar and play until my heart felt better. I thought at the time that we’d hit rock bottom, people would eventually see the error of their ignorance and the next administration would at least change direction. Then we’d progress toward democracy and eventually become civilized.
Thirty years later I see that I was foolish. The world is much different than I’d realized back then. I have no explanation for why so many people allow hateful rhetoric to resonate with their fears instead of trying to become better people or fight to find some courage or anything other than pathetically laying in the mud of ignorance and meekly accepting the bootheels of hate and violence to crush their hope, freedom and voice.
You got it right. There is no magical fix for society as a whole. Individuals need to make a choice between compassion and fear.
Thanks for engaging.