“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.”

That’s from General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, quoted in the New York Times. He’s referring specifically to soldiers at military checkpoints who engage in “escalation of force” against people, usually in vehicles, who behave in ways the soldiers perceive to be threatening.

The whole situation is extremely complicated, but it bears repeating: Afghanistan never attacked the United States. The people of Afghanistan never posed a threat to the United States. The alleged perpetrators of the attacks of September 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon (all nominal “allies” of the United States). The United States had no basis under international law for its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan: such behavior constitutes a war of aggression.

Sixty years ago, the United States government helped to articulate the gravity of a war of aggression: it is “not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Nine years into this unprovoked war, the US general in charge admits “we have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” Though he was talking about checkpoints, his comments could easily apply to the enterprise as a whole.

What will be our reward here in the United States for such international cruelty?

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just” (Thomas Jefferson, 1783).