u.s. taxpayers spent us$486 million on planes for the afghanistan air force. after just 234 hours of flight time, they were sold as scrap for us$32,000.

the united states armed afghanistan warlords to combat that country's takeover by russia - our enemy at the time. when the russian's pulled out after 10 years of war, we moved in (originally to build an oil pipeline for enron), only to find that we had created the taliban.

the first 6 years of the war on drugs in mexico resulted in higher casualties than the first 10 years of the war in afghanistan.

opium cultivation in afghanistan is up 300% since the american invasion.

during the cold war, the u.s. government supplied afghan schools with textbooks filled with violent images and militant versions of islamic teachings to get them to rebel against the u.s.s.r. it worked... until we tried to take the u.s.s.r.'s place.

an afghan taxi driver named dilawar was tortured to death by u.s. troops. they hung him from chains by his wrists for 4 days straight, dislocating both of his shoulders, and beat his legs so badly that they would have had to be amputated if he had survived. he committed no crime, and was 'just in the wrong place at the wrong time'.

dilawar's passengers were also tortured but lived, and were transferred to the american prison camp at guantanamo. they were released in 2004 after 15 months of captivity, without ever being charged with any crime. dilawar is survived by his wife and daughter.

during our 2001 invasion, the u.s. military air-dropped 2.4 million pop tarts on afghanistan. i have no idea why.

depending upon your experience, you can make as much as us$1000 per day working as a mercenary for a u.s. government contractor in afghanistan, iraq, etc. the u.s. government borrows the money from china, and you pay that debt (well, actually, the interest on that debt) with your taxes.