Joya Rejects the NATO Coalition, Harper and the Excuses for War

by Malalai Joya, CommonDreams.org, Oct 2010

In the United States, many looked to the ballot box and hoped for real change when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008.

To be honest, I never expected that he would be any different for Afghanistan than President George W. Bush. The truth is that Obama’s war policies have turned out to be even more of a nightmare than most people expected. Obama talked a lot about hope and change, but for Afghanistan the only change has been for the worse.

After almost two years of Obama, the number of U.S. troops occupying Afghanistan has more than doubled. And the number of drone attacks in Pakistan has increased. Obama’s so-called surge of troops has resulted in increased Afghan civilian deaths.

The documents released by Wikileaks prove what we have been saying about war in Afghanistan. There are more massacres by NATO forces than they wanted us to believe. Now the whole world should know this war is a disaster.

All this is why, for our people, Obama is a warmonger, like another Bush. These are the reasons that throughout Afghanistan more and more people are taking to the streets to protest the U.S. occupation.

And Obama’s surge of the war has also put more U.S. soldiers at risk. And more Canadian troops have died. Why are Obama and Harper wasting so much money on this war when they cannot give jobs or even houses to their own poor people? There are many homeless in Vancouver, but instead Harper spends billions of dollars and new weapons of war…

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