US Senators Seek To End ‘Forever War’ In Afghanistan

By Staff, Agencies

US Senators Rand Paul and Tom Udall introduced a new bill to end the ruinously expensive war in Afghanistan, declaring a so-called ‘victory’ in the longest war in US history after 18 years, some $2 trillion and over 100,000 dead.

“It’s important to know when to declare victory and leave a war,” Paul [R-Ky.] said in a video announcing the American Forces Going Home After Noble Service [AFGHANS] Act, adding, “I think that time has long passed.”

“Soon, US service members will begin deploying to Afghanistan to fight in a war that began before they were born,” Udall [D-N.Mex.] said in a statement issued alongside the bill, pointing out that al-Qaeda – the stated target of the invasion way back in 2001 – is practically nonexistent in Afghanistan nearly two decades later, and Osama bin Laden is long dead.

Perhaps recalling the president’s flip-flopping on withdrawal from Syria, the AFGHANS bill acts fast, setting a one-year deadline for complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan with plans for a handover to the Afghan government to be drawn up within 45 days of passage.

The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force – the document which has been stretched a little further with every country the US invades under the auspices of the “War on Terror” – would be repealed at the conclusion of the pullout.

The bill sets aside $7 billion for bonuses to the war’s veterans – which sounds like a lot until it is compared with the $51 billion yearly cost of actually fighting the war.

Paul listed a few of the more ridiculous “nation-building” projects the US has funded since getting bored with fighting the Taliban, including a luxury hotel in Kabul, a natural gas station for a nation where hardly any cars run on natural gas, and an electrification project for land under Taliban control.