Photo by Jim Vandegrift.

We are about to reach a tragic milestone, the 1000th US troop death inAfghanistan. Many of you bore witness with us on similarly sad occasions as the casualties mounted in Iraq, and now with an administration set on escalation in Afghanistan we must continue, unfortunately, counting the dead. Please join us by hosting/attending a vigil in your community on or near the day after we reach this awful reminder of the human cost of this war.

Though we are in the ninth year of this war in Afghanistan, fully one third of these 1000 deaths have taken place in the last year. Sadly, with the Obama Administration set on escalating the war in Afghanistan, the number of fatalities looks to continue to rise. Today, the number of US troop deaths is at 990, and AFSC will send out a memorial message when we reach the milestone, or you can check here.

While we mark the deaths of the US troops, we also mourn the untold numbers of Afghans and Pakistanis who have perished. The exact number of Afghan deaths is unknown, though surveys from the United Nations show that last year marked the highest number of civilian deaths and the highest number of children being killed.

The Obama administration plans to continue escalating the troop levels in Afghanistan, bringing the number to 100,000. The Department of Defense uses a calculus of $1 million per soldier, per year, to deploy to Afghanistan. In addition to the incalculable cost of lives lost, our country has so far wasted $100 billion in violence and destruction in Afghanistan.

This waste must stop. Please join us, and the peace supporters in your community, in calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan by hosting or attending a vigil to commemorate the lives lost. Tell the Obama administration and congress: Not One More Death, Not One More Dollar For War. If you can’t stage a vigil, then consider writing a letter to the editor.

Wage Peace,
Peter Lems and Mary Zerkel

P.S. Next conference call briefing: Join us for Pakistan’s Role in Bringing Stability to Afghanistan with Dr. Zia Mian on Wednesday 24 February. Dr. Mian will explain the relationship between the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how they relate to the decades old India-Pakistan conflict, the roles of the United States, and how to move toward a comprehensive peace settlement. More details available on our web site.