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As whistleblower and former FBI contractor Sibel Edmonds noted, before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, there were around 189,000 heroin users in the United States. By 2016, that figure increased to 4.5 million—an estimated 2.5 million heroin addicts and 2 million casual users.
The number of heroin overdose deaths in the U.S. also skyrocketed with a 533 percent increase from around 2,000 deaths in 2002 to more than 13,200 deaths in 2016. The is part of more than 64,000 deaths attributed to drug overdoses in 2016, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The idea that the Afghanistan War has any kind of “humanitarian” purpose can be debunked just by looking at the current results and how much civilians have suffered from enduring the effects of years of U.S. intervention.
More than 31,000 civilian deaths have been documented, and it should be noted that over the last few years, civilian deaths have substantially increased—which serves as a reminder that the situation is only getting worse.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan began documenting civilian casualties in 2009. The combined number of civilians who were killed and injured that year was nearly 6,000. The number has steadily increased over the years, and in 2016, it reached a record high with nearly 3,500 killed and nearly 8,000 injured.
The latest report from SIGAR clearly states after 15 years “no counternarcotics program led to lasting reductions in poppy cultivation or opium production.” Instead, U.S. efforts have actually contributed to opium production and made the problem worse.
The report claims that “improved security, governance, and economic growth” are needed to make a lasting difference, which means that after spending more than $1 trillion, the government still believes throwing money at the problem is what is needed to solve it.
