"No matter what we did, where we went, or how many of them we killed, they came back."

Because it was their country. You werent liberating them from anyone. You were just protecting poppy fields with the help of corrupt cadres you installed as 'democratic' government, who funneled poppy profits to wherever your government saw fit. Who escaped with the millions of dollars they hoarded, with helicopters.

You werent fighting to liberate anyone. You were fighting to keep an occupation for corporate profits going.

And you werent killing only 'combatants'.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/interview-julian-assange/