The angry protests currently taking place in Afghanistan provide a microcosm of the U.S. government’s entire foreign policy and so-called war on terrorism. Afghan citizens are protesting NATO’s recent killing of four people, including two women. NATO officials are saying that the four were terrorists. The Afghan people aren’t buying it. They are angrily contending that the four people killed were innocent.

An angry crowd of some 2,000 Afghans protested the killings. Afghan forces then proceeded to kill 14 protestors. That protest was followed up with another one yesterday in which four people were injured.

What better example of how the U.S. government has instigated and perpetuated the war on terrorism with its very own foreign policy of empire and interventionism?

Here’s how the game is played. The U.S. Empire kills someone in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere in the Middle East. The Empire exclaims, “We’ve killed a terrorist! We’ve killed a terrorist!”

But one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The U.S. Empire is a military invader and occupier in that part of the world. Therefore, there are countless people who are trying to oust the occupier from that part of the world. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. Few people like an occupier.

So, while the Empire looks upon people they’re killing as “bad people,” the locals oftentimes don’t see it that way. In fact, given the large number of people that the Empire has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan who had nothing to do with any insurgency, it is entirely possible that the four people they just killed weren’t doing anything to resist the occupation.

Regardless, the fact is that those 4 deaths have caused a lot of anger and rage, which produced the protests, which resulted in even more killing. That additional killing is certain to raise the anger and rage even more.

So, even if we assume that those 4 dead people were insurgents, the Empire is now faced with thousands of angry people, some of whom are likely to become insurgents or terrorists themselves.

Do you see why their war on terrorism is endless? They kill 4 people they say are terrorists and end up with 100 or so more terrorists to kill down the line. And when they kill those 100 terrorists, they’re faced with 1000 more from the people who become angry over those killings.

Do you see why they’ve been over there occupying those countries for more than 10 years?

Why, just last week NATO officials were apologizing for accidentally killing two children — a 14-year old boy and a 12-year-old girl — in separate incidents. They apologized because they said that they had no intention of killing the kids. They were accidentally killed as part of the Empire’s nighttime raids against terrorists.

Regardless of the reason for the deaths of those two kids, it is a virtual certainty that there are going to be people who are angry over their killing. Who wouldn’t be angry over the killing of two innocent children?

After all, consider all the anger and rage that boiled over when the U.S. Empire killed hundreds of thousands of children with its 11 years of brutal sanctions against Iraq. Consider the anger and rage that erupted when U.S. spokesman said that the deaths of those children were “worth it.”

That rage ultimately manifested itself in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the USS Cole, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and on the WTC on 9/11.

Thus, in the attempt to kill terrorists, the Empire kills two innocent children, which then produces more terrorists from the people who are angry over the killing of those kids.

It’s a never-ending process. Let’s face it: The U.S. Empire has become the greatest terrorist-producing machine in history. For every terrorist they kill over there, they produce 100 more to kill down the line. What better formula for ever-increasing military budgets than that?

I’ve got an idea: Let’s bring all the troops home and see what happens. If terrorists attack the United States, then we deal with them here, not in someone else’s country where children, wedding parties, and others are killed in the process of killing terrorists. At least then, the Empire’s perpetual terrorist-producing machine will have been dismantled.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation.