Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is your host, Abby Martin. This is the audio of our show.

You can watch the episodes on our YouTube channel or at the Empirefiles.tv.

This is Abby Martin with your Empire Update, wrapping up the last week in U.S. imperialism.

Our first story paints a startling new picture of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.

On January 15th, during the Trump administration's last days, they announced that the U.S. troop presence in America's longest war dropped to an all-time low of 2,500. Great news, right? Wrong. New data from the U.S.

Military Central Command shows that the number of private mercenaries now in Afghanistan has shattered

all previous records. Today, 18,000 private

contractors supplement U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan. Let's put that number in a perspective.

In 2017, Trump increased the number of private mercenaries to around 5,900. This was big news,

since the only time that number had ever surpassed 5,000

was briefly during Obama's ill-fated troop search. Now, there are almost four times that number,

basically seven contractors for every one U.S. troop. And that doesn't even include the number of

troops from NATO partners under U.S. command,

like those from Australia, recently exposed for committing horrendous war crimes against civilians.

That number is still over 10,000. On January 31st of this year, senior NATO officials

confirmed that those troop numbers will remain the same,

despite the removal of some U.S. troops as part of the flimsy Taliban deal. So while the U.S. Empire wants us to focus on this number, 2,500, as the size of the U.S. forever war,

the real number is really about 30,000 under the control of American generals.

While Trump maliciously broke his promise to end the war,

Biden comes into office on a campaign promise to continue the war indefinitely.

This new data should emphasize the urgency in addressing the reality of this endless war,

and for activists to make it untenable for Biden's

...