War on Terror just a war of words – US protesters

At the same time as President Barack Obama was trying to put some good spin on the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of people were marching outside the White House, calling those announced goals ‘lies’, which benefit just a select few.

The US says it will take its forces out of Afghanistan by 2014, but many people believe that deadline could be stretched indefinitely. It has been a year since Obama stepped up efforts in Afghanistan by adding 30,000 troops to the existing contingent there. It has also been the deadliest year for the US forces there, with casualties having almost doubled.“In many places the gains we’ve made are still fragile and reversible…and more Afghans [are] reclaiming their communities,” President Obama has announced. You hear a different message from veterans like Matthis Chiroux, who fought in Afghanistan.“Having been there myself I can tell you, the US is not a liberating force there. It is not a nation-building force. Nothing there in bringing food to people,” he argues.A record 60 per cent of Americans say the almost ten-year-old war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting, both in terms of lives and dollars. A new price tag was announced for the war this year: $1.2 trillion. What about security? People in the US do not seem to feel safer either.“Our presence there, all the interventions only serves to make the world a lot less stable, a lot more violence. If we check, the number of Taliban [has] increased,” says Lysle Hall, one of the protesters.Knowingly getting arrested in front of the White House could hardly help end wars, but these protesters hope that if they shout loud enough, someone will hear them. The wars that America has been fighting have taken trillions of dollars out of US taxpayers pockets, and apparently, they will continue to do so. People who came to protest in front of the White House say they do not buy into the argument of the War on Terror anymore.