London, July 26, IRNA – The biggest-ever leak of 90,000 US military records confirms the truth and horrors about the war in Afghanistan, Britain’s largest peace group network has said.
“The war in Afghanistan is pointless and unwinnable and the warmongers have lied to us continually. It must end now. All foreign troops must be withdrawn without delay,” Stop the War Coalition (STWC) said.
The leak that reveals many tragic stories of civilian deaths “confirms everything the anti-war movement has said for years,” an STWC spokesman said in a statement Monday obtained by IRNA.
Civic, the worldwide campaign group against civilian casualties, called for full inquiries into the individual cases of the horrors, while the US condemned as “irresponsible” the publication on Wikileaks website, saying that they could threaten national security.
“To really understand a war and its implications, the human cost should be weighed against the strategic considerations. The two go hand-in-hand. That’s particularly true in Afghanistan, where commanders now realise the people are the main strategic consideration,” said Civic director Sarah Holewinski.
The huge cache of classified papers, given in advance to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and German daily, Der Spiegel, included numerous civilian killings that have been unreported until now.
The US army’s archives also contained descriptions of at least 21 separate occasions in which British troops are said to have shot or bombed Afghan civilians, including women and children.