When the heck is the war against Afghanistan going to end? It will end when it’s good and finished, that’s when.

The United States’ bombing campaign continues, despite objections from the newly established Afghan government of interim leader Hamid Karzai. He’s upset because Afghan civilians are still dying. I suppose he has a point, in a very narrow sense. But he hasn’t looked at the big picture.

Sure, more than 4,000 civilians have already been killed by American bombing in Afghanistan (60-65 a day, by the estimates of University of New Hampshire prof Marc Herold, not including indirect death and casualties).

And sure, this would seem to undermine the US pretence that they are waging a “just war” in Afghanistan (but no more so than objections from Afghanistan’s puny new leaders).

The logic is in the numbers. Two thousand eight hundred and ninety-three innocent people died in the World Trade Center. Forty-four innocent people died in Pennsylvania. Around one hundred and eighty-nine innocent people died when the Pentagon was struck.

That makes a total of 3,126. And on the surface it would seem that, if 4,000 innocent Afghans have been killed by American bombs, the necessary criterion of “an eye for an eye” has been met—revenge has been exacted from a foreign …power? …er, nation and the bombing should end.

But, folks, in America money trades at a higher level than human life (unless they are US Marine lives).

That’s why it is necessary to estimate the earning power, on average, of each innocent American that died on September 11 and exact that sum of earning potential from the future economy of Afghanistan.

The average American earns $29,676 a year. The average Afghan earns $280.

And that is why, Hamid Karzai, the US government feels entirely justified in exacting 100 times as many innocent lives as you would expect from the civilian population of Afghanistan. That is the big picture, Mr. Karzai. Tough luck!

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