The War on Terror Isn't Over; It's Just Entering a New Phase

By Diana Ohlbaum, The Hill

In his September speech to the United Nations, President Joe Biden declared, “for the first time in 20 years…the United States [is] not at war.” Unfortunately, that is far from true. Not even in Afghanistan, where the president has authorized continued bombing — with predictably horrifying results.

Imagine this: in a working-class neighborhood not far from Los Angeles International Airport, a 40-year-old husband and father arrives home from work on a Sunday afternoon. As he pulls his Toyota Corolla into the garage, his children run out to greet him. Out of the sky, a Russian military drone fires a missile at the house, killing ten people — seven of them children, and five younger than five years old. Russian President Putin at first claims the target was a Chechen terrorist, but later admits it was a big mistake and the victims were all just innocent American civilians. 

That’s exactly what happened, except it was a U.S. drone and the victims were in Afghanistan. This is nothing new. The same story is replayed over and over again: a wedding procession in Yemen, a family dinner in Somalia, tending fields in Pakistan. At least 22,000 civilians have been killed in U.S. airstrikes since 9/11.