![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/wp-content\/files\/Letter_Afghanistan-1024x614.jpg\")
Afghan civilians hold pictures of the victims and damage caused by US airstrikes, during a protest in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Photograph: Najim Raheem\/EPA<\/p><\/div>\n
This weekend marks the 17th anniversary of the US coalition\u2019s invasion of Afghanistan, triggering a war that has lasted four times as long as the first world war.<\/p>\n
Some 3,546 Nato soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, 456 of whom were British, while a conservative estimate suggests 217,000 Afghans have died as a direct result of the fighting.<\/p>\n
During each of the past 17 years, Afghanistan has continued its descent into poverty, violence, environmental degradation and instability. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one of the most dangerous.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has increased US bombing and, therefore, civilian casualties have risen too. The July 2018 UN assistance mission in Afghanistan (Unama) report described fatality rates in early 2018 as being \u201cthe bloodiest on record\u201d, at an average rate of 28 Afghan civilian casualties per day.<\/p>\n
Despite this, and the fact that neither the US nor the UK have a plan for Afghanistan, more British troops are joining 15,000 US and 6,000 other Nato forces in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Like all the other recent western military adventures, the war on Afghanistan has been a costly disaster, deepening the country\u2019s crisis and helping to spread violence across the region and beyond. We demand that the UK government withdraws its military and instead concentrates on helping to bring stability and peace to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark Rylance<\/strong> read on-line<\/a> or access PDF here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 17-year war has been a costly disaster, deepening the country\u2019s crisis and helping to spread violence across the region and beyond, say actors including Mark Rylance, MPs including Imran Hussain, and other campaigners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9248,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6854\/revisions\/9248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dannydorling.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nActor
\nJohn Pilger<\/strong>
\nJournalist
\nEmma Dent Coad<\/strong>
\nMP
\nJonathan Edwards<\/strong>
\nMP
\nBen Lake<\/strong>
\nMP
\nCaroline Lucas<\/strong>
\nMP
\nAngus MacNeil<\/strong>
\nMP
\nImran Hussain<\/strong>
\nMP
\nLiz Saville Roberts<\/strong>
\nMP, and Leader of Plaid Cymru\u2019s parliamentary group
\nHywel Williams<\/strong>
\nMP
\nChris Williamson<\/strong>
\nMP
\nKevin Courtney<\/strong>
\nJoint general secretary, NEU
\nLindsey German<\/strong>
\nConvener, Stop the War Coalition
\nMurad Qureshi<\/strong>
\nChair, Stop the War Coalition
\nMaya Evans<\/strong>
\nCo-ordinator, Voices for Creative Non-Violence
\nKate Hudson<\/strong>
\nGeneral secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
\nMairead Maguire<\/strong>
\nNobel peace laureate
\nMiriam Margolyes<\/strong>
\nActor
\nKika Markham<\/strong>
\nActor
\nJemima Khan<\/strong>
\nTV, film and documentary producer
\nFrancesca Martinez<\/strong>
\nComedian, actor and author
\nAndy de la Tour<\/strong>
\nActor and author
\nVictoria Brittain<\/strong>
\nAuthor
\nDanny Dorling<\/strong>
\nProfessor of Geography<\/p>\n