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STRIP the shroud off Afghanistan. You will not find the bodies of 14,500 Soviet soldiers who died during their government’s obsessive nine-year occupation (1979-1989) of that war-savaged country.
Nor will you see the body-bags containing the remains of 2,442 US troops killed, nor over 3,800 US private security contractors (‘The Pentagon does not track their deaths’).
Do not expect to see the corpses of 1,144 personnel from the 36-nation Nato coalition that supported the US retaliation for 9/11, nor a memorial to 72 journalists and 444 aid workers. These collateral casualties were shipped home for a dignified burial.
They died so that 70,000 Afghan troops could sacrifice their lives defending a US-backed regime. They died so that 47,000-plus Afghan civilians could become grist to the Pentagon’s iron treadmill. They died so that over three million would be forced to escape into Pakistan and 2m more into Iran and Europe. They died so that another 4m
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