Veterans Day Should Be A Reminder That War Is Not The Way

With the U.S. war in Afghanistan over, we need to address the the toxicity of Veterans Day.

By Rory Fanning, Truthout

As a veteran who turned into an antiwar activist after deploying twice to Afghanistan, I’ve been railing against the toxicity of Veterans Day and calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan every year for the last decade.

This year, following the official end to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, there is a new kind of pressure because I fear most people in the U.S. will soon stop talking about Afghanistan — the country I think about nearly every day — entirely.

I know it’s tempting. The war is technically over. We saw it “end” nearly three months ago. But in reality, the war spills on in insidious ways that are harder to see and harder to resist: official and unofficial special forces operations, drone strikes and surveillance, and the training and maintenance of proxy forces.