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.

The perpetual occupation of Afghanistan has become so normalized. It mostly serves as background noise to Americans.

It's even jokingly referred to as the forever war, accepted as just a constant reality.

A soldier dies now and again a couple dozen civilians get killed in another bombing. It's never

enough to stir the population to pressure Washington to stop it. The endless war drags on.

Since 2001, almost one million U.S. troops have been deployed to Afghanistan. Many repeatedly,

of those 2,300 have died. And the new revelation that nearly 4,000 U.S. mercenaries have also died fighting in Afghanistan,

almost double the number of U.S. troops, shows the American occupation is even bigger than we've been led to believe.

From Bush to Obama to Trump, every president promised to end the war.

But always, their plans to bring the troops home

first required sending more troops.

People often ask me, how long will this last?

This particular battlefront will last as long as it takes

to bring al-Qaeda to justice.

It may happen tomorrow.

It may happen a month from now. It may take a year or two,

but we will prevail.

Al-Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and by 2014, the war in Afghanistan will be over.

And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Others will ask, why don't we leave immediately?

That answer is also clear.

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