On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, Bernie Sanders Calls for End to Endless War

Sen. Bernie Sanders marked the anniversary of the September 11th attacks on Wednesday by calling for the nation to get off the path of never-ending war it's pursued since the start of the so-called war on terror.

"Instead of staying focused on those who attacked us," Sanders said in a statement, "the Bush administration chose to declare a global 'war on terror' in order justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror has turned into an endless war."

And that, Sanders continued, has had deleterious effects, including a $6 trillion price tag and a weakening of U.S. democracy. Endless war has also unleashed blowback--"it has produced more terrorists," he said.

His somber reflection stressed the need to one of the post-9/11 conflicts--the war in Afghanistan.

"If we do not move decisively to end America's longest war," Sanders wrote on Twitter, "we will soon see servicemembers fight and die in Afghanistan and around the world in a conflict that was started before they were born.'"

A new approach to global engagement is necessary, said Sanders.

"We must envision a new form of American engagement: one in which we lead not in war-making but in finding shared solutions to shared global challenges," he said. "U.S. power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but to bring people together around our common humanity."

Sanders is one of the Democratic White House hopefuls that has signed a pledge affirming his intention of ending the "endless war."

Rolled out earlier this year by the veteran-led grassroots organization Common Defense, signers promise they will "act to bring the Forever War to a responsible and expedient conclusion."

While frontrunner Joe Biden has not added his name, other 2020 Democrats have: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, former HUD Secretary Julian Castro, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.