in case you forgot since 'our free press' doesn't speak of it much, the empire is at war in afghanistan, and here is some of the price tag;

Whatever hopes of returning to normal life regular Afghans have had until recently, these days those are all but dissolving like a morning mist. The so-called Afghan reconciliation summit that was to be held in Qatar has been put on the back burner indefinitely. It was envisioned as a separate event, unrelated to the direct talks between the Taliban and the United States led by the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, which marked the downfall of this format.

As it’s been revealed by the Washington Post, so far there’s been five rounds of negotiations between the United States and the Taliban, yet the parties failed to achieve any visible progress.

The resistance movement wants foreign troops out of their country as soon as possible, while Washington is all about keeping a foothold in this war-torn country. Afghan rebels would even meet with with those Afghan politicians not aligned with the official government in Kabul during a conference in Moscow last February. Yet, they would refuse to hold any sort of discussions with the sitting pro-Western president, Ashraf Ghani and his administration, as they describe him as a puppet in the hands of outside powers.

The situation is complicated even further by the ongoing disputes between the Kabul government and the above mentioned Zalmay Khalilzad. Last month, Ghani’s national security advisor accused Khalilzad of showing signs of royal behavior, which in his opinion undermines the legitimacy of the sitting Afghan government. In response to the remark, Washington would cease to even notice the existence of this high-profile public figure.

In the meantime, it has been revealed that at least 11,000 civilians were killed and wounded in Afghanistan during the 1397 solar year which coincides with March 2018 to March 2019, according to statistics provided by Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

According to Die Welt, in the first three months of the year, American servicemen and their allies on the ground killed more civilians than both terrorist and rebel detachments operating in Afghanistan. As it’s been revealed by the UN mission in Afghanistan, the absolute majority of those deceased fell victims of US-coalition air strikes and ground operations. It’s also been added that in recent years the death toll among the civilian population of Afghanistan reached unprecedented numbers. Last year alone some 3804 civilians perished, with 7189 more suffering severe injuries. That’s an eleven percent increase over the previous year.............https://journal-neo.org/2019/06/07/no-peace-allowed-in-afghanistan/