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What Afghanistan’s Saigon moment teaches us about America’s ‘humanitarian wars’

By Maram Susli | RT | August 16, 2021

What we’ve just witnessed in Afghanistan is a historical repeat of the ‘Saigon moment’. But the final hours of the US occupation have been accompanied by a cacophony of neocons decrying the decision to end the war.

They cite women’s rights, regional stability and anti-terrorism as reasons the US should have remained in Afghanistan. But those were the very reasons cited for starting the war in the first place, back in 2001. How many more decades do they expect the world to be held hostage to the narratives of ‘the humanitarian war’? It’s now, at the end of the US’s longest war, that we must reflect on the past 20 years, and consider how it was that those false “humanitarian” narratives led us to this point.

Some of the most grave human rights violations occurred at the very onset of the war.

In the first months, the US dropped thousands of yellow cluster bombs around Afghan villages. They resembled aid packages – also yellow. Children would rush to collect what they believed to be food, only to end up dead after picking up and setting off an explosive device.

In an incident now known as ‘the convoy of death’, Taliban fighters who surrendered to the Afghan Northern Alliance were stuffed into sealed shipping containers and allowed to asphyxiate as they were driven across the desert – allegedly under the watchful eye of the CIA.

The list of US war crimes grew as the years went by. Reports emerged that US soldiers were killing civilians and allegedly keeping their body parts as souvenirs. Thanks to the bravery of former British Army major turned Australian army lawyer David McBride, who leaked secret documents, we learnt that Australian special forces had a similar kill team operating in Afghanistan.

One of the strongest narratives that sold the war on Afghanistan to the public was what removing the Taliban could do for women’s rights. But the notion that the US had any real interest in women’s rights is ludicrous, since, in the first place, it was the US that helped the Taliban take control of Afghanistan away from the Soviet-backed secular government.

In 2001, when the former Islamist commanders from the days of the anti-Soviet insurgency came to power, ‘bacha bazi’ – a practice linked with the oppression of women’s rights and child sex abuse that had been outlawed by the Taliban – became common again. American soldiers were reportedly instructed not to intervene, not even when their Afghan allies abused boys on US military bases. In fact, in 2010, a WikiLeaks cable revealed that American mercenaries in the employ of DynCorp paid to bring bacha bazi boys onto a military base to dance for Afghan commanders.

Afghan women deserve rights, but not through US occupation.

And, while we’re talking about rights abuses, what about the rights of American soldiers? How many young men were buried in pursuit of this ill-fated war? Many who survived face a lifetime of pain or mental illness. Veterans are twice as likely as the average American to die from an overdose using opioids – which, ironically, likely originated in Afghanistan.

According to the US military, 90% of the world’s heroin is made from Afghan opium. In 2000, the Taliban outlawed its cultivation, but after the US invasion, there was record-high production year after year. The US effectively turned Afghanistan into a narco-state. Even the longest-running US-backed Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, had a brother who was a drug lord and allegedly on the CIA’s payroll. It is perhaps no coincidence that the US is now facing one of the deadliest opioid epidemics in a century.

In order to buy into the notion that the US pull-out will be a threat to peace and stability in the region, we would first have to believe the occupation of Afghanistan was a source of peace and stability. The reality is, in the past 20 years, not a day went by without violence, and it has left Afghanistan in ruins. The invasion was sold as a way to defeat Al-Qaeda in the War on Terror, but instead, we saw the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) across the Middle East and an increase in terrorist activity across the globe. Again, if the US were serious about defeating terrorism, it wouldn’t be backing Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Syria.

There is no reason to believe that America’s goals in Afghanistan had anything to do with maintaining stability. Although the US military has pulled out, that may, in fact, be part of Washington’s calculus to cause instability from afar – a cheaper alternative to the occupation. After all, as it pivots towards a confrontation with China, the US needs to retain its resources. China’s volatile Xinjiang province shares a border with Afghanistan. It would want to avoid any instability that could mean militants flowing over that border. Perhaps the US hopes to draw China into the graveyard of empires.

No one has a higher stake in maintaining Afghanistan’s stability than its neighbours – in particular, Pakistan, China, Iran, and Russia. After 40 years of conflict, the Taliban is now decidedly more pragmatic in its dealings with all of them. Russia, in spite of its own history of war in Afghanistan, has decided to normalise relations with the Taliban in the interests of stability. Iran, which had its share of animosity towards the formerly anti-Shi’ite Taliban, hosted peace talks with the militants and the US-backed Afghan government. China, too, has had its issues with the Taliban, as members of its Uighur minority have previously crossed the border to join Al-Qaeda and fight alongside them. The Taliban has promised not to intervene in China’s Uighur issue and, in return, China has offered to build Afghanistan’s infrastructure and bring it out of an era of ruin into an era of economic prosperity. That’s something else the decades of US control failed to accomplish.

Whatever may come next, as the last Chinook takes off from the US Embassy, Afghans finally have the ability to decide their own destiny. May we all stop to think twice when next the neocons spin a humanitarian narrative to breach the sovereignty of a nation.

Maram Susli is a Syrian-Australian political analyst and commentator. She has written for New Eastern Outlook and Sputnik UK, among others.

August 16, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Hamas congratulates Afghan people on liberating their land

Palestine Information Center – August 16, 2021

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Hamas Movement has congratulated the Muslim Afghan people on liberating their land from the American occupation.

In a press release on Monday, Hamas said that the victory that was achieved by the Taliban Movement and its courageous leadership came as a culmination to its long struggle against the American occupation over the past 20 years.

Hamas said that the ousting of the US occupation and allies from Afghanistan proved that victory is the destiny of every occupied nation struggling for the liberation of its homeland.

Finally, the Movement has wished the Afghan people and its leadership every success in achieving unity, stability and prosperity in their liberated land.

August 16, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

The U.S. Government Lied For Two Decades About Afghanistan

By Glenn Greenwald | August 16, 2021

“The Taliban regime is coming to an end,” announced President George W. Bush at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on December 12, 2001 — almost twenty years ago today. Five months later, Bush vowed: “In the United States of America, the terrorists have chosen a foe unlike they have faced before. . . . We will stay until the mission is done.” Four years after that, in August of 2006, Bush announced: “Al Qaeda and the Taliban lost a coveted base in Afghanistan and they know they will never reclaim it when democracy succeeds.  . . . The days of the Taliban are over. The future of Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan.”

For two decades, the message Americans heard from their political and military leaders about the country’s longest war was the same. America is winning. The Taliban is on the verge of permanent obliteration. The U.S. is fortifying the Afghan security forces, which are close to being able to stand on their own and defend the government and the country.

Just five weeks ago, on July 8, President Biden stood in the East Room of the White House and insisted that a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was not inevitable because, while their willingness to do so might be in doubt, “the Afghan government and leadership . . . clearly have the capacity to sustain the government in place.” Biden then vehemently denied the accuracy of a reporter’s assertion that “your own intelligence community has assessed that the Afghan government will likely collapse.” Biden snapped: “That is not true. They did not — they didn’t — did not reach that conclusion.”

Biden continued his assurances by insisting that “the likelihood there’s going to be one unified government in Afghanistan controlling the whole country is highly unlikely.” He went further: “the likelihood that there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” And then, in an exchange that will likely assume historic importance in terms of its sheer falsity from a presidential podium, Biden issued this decree:

Q.  Mr. President, some Vietnamese veterans see echoes of their experience in this withdrawal in Afghanistan.  Do you see any parallels between this withdrawal and what happened in Vietnam, with some people feeling —

THE PRESIDENT:  None whatsoever. Zero.  What you had is — you had entire brigades breaking through the gates of our embassy — six, if I’m not mistaken.

The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan.  It is not at all comparable.

When asked about the Taliban being stronger than ever after twenty years of U.S. warfare there, Biden claimed: “Relative to the training and capacity of the [Afghan National Security Forces] and the training of the federal police, they’re not even close in terms of their capacity.” On July 21 — just three weeks ago — Gen. Mark Milley, Biden’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that “there’s a possibility of a complete Taliban takeover, or the possibility of any number of other scenario,” yet insisted: “the Afghan Security Forces have the capacity to sufficiently fight and defend their country.”

Similar assurances have been given by the U.S. Government and military leadership to the American people since the start of the war. “Are we losing this war?,” Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, asked rhetorically in a news briefing from Afghanistan in 2008, answering it this way: “Absolutely no way. Can the enemy win it? Absolutely no way.” On September 4, 2013, then-Lt. Gen. Milley — now Biden’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — complained that the media was not giving enough credit to the progress they had made in building up the Afghan national security forces: “This army and this police force have been very, very effective in combat against the insurgents every single day,” Gen. Milley insisted.

None of this was true. It was always a lie, designed first to justify the U.S’s endless occupation of that country and, then, once the U.S. was poised to withdraw, to concoct a pleasing fairy tale about why the prior twenty years were not, at best, an utter waste. That these claims were false cannot be reasonably disputed as the world watches the Taliban take over all of Afghanistan as if the vaunted “Afghan national security forces” were china dolls using paper weapons. But how do we know that these statements made over the course of two decades were actual lies rather than just wildly wrong claims delivered with sincerity?

To begin with, we have seen these tactics from U.S. officials — lying to the American public about wars to justify both their initiation and continuation — over and over. The Vietnam War, like the Iraq War, was begun with a complete fabrication disseminated by the intelligence community and endorsed by corporate media outlets: that the North Vietnamese had launched an unprovoked attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. In 2011, President Obama, who ultimately ignored a Congressional vote against authorization of his involvement in the war in Libya to topple Muammar Qaddafi, justified the NATO war by denying that regime change was the goal: “our military mission is narrowly focused on saving lives . . . broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” Even as Obama issued those false assurances, The New York Times reported that “the American military has been carrying out an expansive and increasingly potent air campaign to compel the Libyan Army to turn against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.”

Just as they did for the war in Afghanistan, U.S. political and military leaders lied for years to the American public about the prospects for winning. On June 13, 1971, The New York Times published reports about thousands of pages of top secret documents from military planners that came to be known as “The Pentagon Papers.” Provided by former RAND official Daniel Ellsberg, who said he could not in good conscience allow official lies about the Vietnam War to continue, the documents revealed that U.S. officials in secret were far more pessimistic about the prospects for defeating the North Vietnamese than their boastful public statements suggested. In 2021, The New York Times recalled some of the lies that were demonstrated by that archive on the 50th Anniversary of its publication:

Brandishing a captured Chinese machine gun, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara appeared at a televised news conference in the spring of 1965. The United States had just sent its first combat troops to South Vietnam, and the new push, he boasted, was further wearing down the beleaguered Vietcong.

“In the past four and one-half years, the Vietcong, the Communists, have lost 89,000 men,” he said. “You can see the heavy drain.”

That was a lie. From confidential reports, McNamara knew the situation was “bad and deteriorating” in the South. “The VC have the initiative,” the information said. “Defeatism is gaining among the rural population, somewhat in the cities, and even among the soldiers.”

Lies like McNamara’s were the rule, not the exception, throughout America’s involvement in Vietnam. The lies were repeated to the public, to Congress, in closed-door hearings, in speeches and to the press.

The lies were repeated to the public, to Congress, in closed-door hearings, in speeches and to the press. The real story might have remained unknown if, in 1967, McNamara had not commissioned a secret history based on classified documents — which came to be known as the Pentagon Papers. By then, he knew that even with nearly 500,000 U.S. troops in theater, the war was at a stalemate.

The pattern of lying was virtually identical throughout several administrations when it came to Afghanistan. In 2019, The Washington Post — obviously with a nod to the Pentagon Papers — published a report about secret documents it dubbed “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war.” Under the headline “AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH,” The Post summarized its findings: “U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.” They explained:

Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.

In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.”

None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban on their own. More than 60,000 members of Afghan security forces have been killed, a casualty rate that U.S. commanders have called unsustainable.

As the Post explained, “the documents contradict a long chorus of public statements from U.S. presidents, military commanders and diplomats who assured Americans year after year that they were making progress in Afghanistan and the war was worth fighting.” Those documents dispel any doubt about whether these falsehoods were intentional:

Several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public. They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul — and at the White House — to distort statistics to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case.

“Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible,” Bob Crowley, an Army colonel who served as a senior counterinsurgency adviser to U.S. military commanders in 2013 and 2014, told government interviewers. “Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.”

John Sopko, the head of the federal agency that conducted the interviews, acknowledged to The Post that the documents show “the American people have constantly been lied to.”

 

Last month, the independent journalist Michael Tracey, writing at Substack, interviewed a U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan. The former soldier, whose job was to work in training programs for the Afghan police and also participated in training briefings for the Afghan military, described in detail why the program to train Afghan security forces was such an obvious failure and even a farce. “I don’t think I could overstate that this was a system just basically designed for funneling money and wasting or losing equipment,” he said. In sum, “as far as the US military presence there — I just viewed it as a big money funneling operation”: an endless money pit for U.S. security contractors and Afghan warlords, all of whom knew that no real progress was being made, just sucking up as much U.S. taxpayer money as they could before the inevitable withdraw and takeover by the Taliban.

In light of all this, it is simply inconceivable that Biden’s false statements last month about the readiness of the Afghan military and police force were anything but intentional. That is particularly true given how heavily the U.S. had Afghanistan under every conceivable kind of electronic surveillance for more than a decade. A significant portion of the archive provided to me by Edward Snowden detailed the extensive surveillance the NSA had imposed on all of Afghanistan. In accordance with the guidelines he required, we never published most of those documents about U.S. surveillance in Afghanistan on the ground that it could endanger people without adding to the public interest, but some of the reporting gave a glimpse into just how comprehensively monitored the country was by U.S. security services.

In 2014, I reported along with Laura Poitras and another journalist that the NSA had developed the capacity, under the codenamed SOMALGET, that empowered them to be “secretly intercepting, recording, and archiving the audio of virtually every cell phone conversation” in at least five countries. At any time, they could listen to the stored conversations of any calls conducted by cell phone throughout the entire country. Though we published the names of four countries in which the program had been implemented, we withheld, after extensive internal debate at The Intercept, the identity of the fifth — Afghanistan — because the NSA had convinced some editors that publishing it would enable the Taliban to know where the program was located and it could endanger the lives of the military and private-sector employees working on it (in general, at Snowden’s request, we withheld publication of documents about NSA activities in active war zones unless they revealed illegality or other deceit). But WikiLeaks subsequently revealed, accurately, that the one country whose identity we withheld where this program was implemented was Afghanistan.

There was virtually nothing that could happen in Afghanistan without the U.S. intelligence community’s knowledge. There is simply no way that they got everything so completely wrong while innocently and sincerely trying to tell Americans the truth about what was happening there.

In sum, U.S. political and military leaders have been lying to the American public for two decades about the prospects for success in Afghanistan generally, and the strength and capacity of the Afghan security forces in particular — up through five weeks ago when Biden angrily dismissed the notion that U.S. withdrawal would result in a quick and complete Taliban takeover. Numerous documents, largely ignored by the public, proved that U.S. officials knew what they were saying was false — just as happened so many times in prior wars — and even deliberately doctored information to enable their lies.

Any residual doubt about the falsity of those two decades of optimistic claims has been obliterated by the easy and lightning-fast blitzkrieg whereby the Taliban took back control of Afghanistan as if the vaunted Afghan military did not even exist, as if it were August, 2001 all over again. It is vital not just to take note of how easily and frequently U.S. leaders lie to the public about its wars once those lies are revealed at the end of those wars, but also to remember this vital lesson the next time U.S. leaders propose a new war using the same tactics of manipulation, lies, and deceit.

August 16, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Taliban seek peaceful transfer of power in ‘next few days’: Spokesman

A US military helicopter is pictured flying above the US embassy in Kabul on August 15, 2021. (Photo by AFP) Top photo – Saigon, 1975.
Press TV – August 15, 2021

A Taliban spokesman says the group expects a “peaceful transition of power” in the next few days after the militants entered Afghanistan’s capital Kabul with little resistance amid evacuation of US diplomats from its embassy by helicopter.

“We are awaiting a peaceful transfer of power” as soon as possible, Suhail Shaheen said in an interview with BBC on Sunday, adding the Taliban expected that to happen in a matter of days.

The spokesman added that the group is in talks with the Afghan government “for a peaceful surrender” of Kabul, calling on President Ashraf Ghani and other leaders of Afghanistan “to work with us.”

He emphasized that the group would protect the rights of women, who “will be allowed to leave homes alone,” as well as freedoms for media workers and diplomats.

Shaheen said media would be allowed to criticize anyone but should not indulge in character assassination.

“We assure the [Afghan] people, particularly in the city of Kabul, that their properties, their lives are safe,” the Taliban spokesman said.

He added that the group seeks to establish an inclusive Afghan government in which all Afghans will be represented.

The spokesman said the Taliban have no intension of taking revenge on anyone, adding that all those who have served the government and military will be forgiven.

The Taliban capture Afghanistan’s key eastern city of Jalalabad

The Taliban spokesman called on Afghan civilians to stay in their country and do not leave due to fear.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban’s political bureau, rejected as “mere rumor” reports that Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the political chief of Taliban, has travelled to Kabul, saying he is in the Qatari capital city of Doha.

Afghan state sources denied reports about the presence of a Taliban delegation in the presidential palace.

Afghan President Ghani leaves country for Tajikistan: Interior ministry official

Later on Sunday, a senior official at Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said the country’s President Ashraf Ghani has left the capital Kabul for the neighboring Tajikistan.

Asked for comment, the president’s office said it “cannot say anything about Ashraf Ghani’s movement for security reasons.”

A top Afghan foreign ministry official said separately that Ghani had left Afghanistan, but that it was not clear which country he was heading for.

Afghanistan’s top peace negotiator, Abdullah Abdullah, also confirmed Ghani’s exit from the country, saying in a video posted on his Facebook page, “”The former Afghan president has left the nation.”

Abdullah blamed President Ghani for the current situation in the war-ravaged country.

The new revelation came as a representative of the Taliban said the group was checking on Ghani’s whereabouts.

Taliban forces ordered to enter Kabul to prevent looting after police desert posts 

The Taliban spokesman released a statement on Sunday afternoon, saying that the group has ordered its forces to enter the Afghan capital Kabul to prevent looting after local police deserted their posts.

The statement by Zabihullah Mujahid came shortly after it was announced that President Ashraf Ghani had left the country.

https://twitter.com/newsistaan/status/1426909601371287560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1426909601371287560%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.presstv.ir%2FDetail%2F2021%2F08%2F15%2F664491%2FAfghanistan-Kabul-Taliban-Suhail-Shaheen-spokesman-power-transition-Mohammad-Naeem-Mullah-Abdul-Ghani-Baradar-Interior-Minister-Abdul-Sattar-Mirzakwal-Kandahar

Kabul handover will be peaceful: Afghan acting interior minister

In a related development, Afghan acting Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal also said on Sunday that the “power will be peacefully transferred to a transitional government.”

“It is agreed that power will be transferred in a peaceful manner to a transitional administration,” Mirzakwal said in a televised message broadcast in local media.

“People should not worry about the safety and security in Kabul. The security of the city has been guaranteed. There will be no attack on the city,” he added.

The official emphasized that the big city of Kabul and the power will be handed over to a temporary third party and called on the people not to be “victim” of Taliban propaganda.

Russia: No plan to evacuate Kabul embassy

Meanwhile, Russia announced on Sunday that it does not plan to evacuate its embassy in Kabul as Taliban fighters reached the outskirts of the Afghan capital, a Russian Foreign Ministry official, Zamir Kabulov, told Russian news agencies.

“No evacuation is planned,” Kabulov said, adding that he was “in direct contact” with Moscow’s ambassador in Kabul and that Russian embassy employees continued to work “calmly,” AFP reported.

According to the RIA Novosti agency, Kabulov also said that Russia is among countries that have received assurances from the Taliban that their embassies would be safe.

“We received these guarantees a while ago. It was not only about Russia,” RIA Novosti quoted Kabulov as saying.

“The situation in Kabul is a bit tense, but there is no war in the city,” a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Kabul was quoted by TASS news agency as saying.

The spokesman was also cited by the Interfax news agency as saying that Moscow is ready to cooperate with Afghanistan’s interim government, adding that Russia is taking part in political contacts in Afghanistan.

TASS also quoted a Taliban official as saying, “We have good relations with Russia and our policy, in general, is to ensure safe conditions for operations of the Russian and other embassies.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry, however, was quoted by RIA state news agency as saying that Moscow does not yet recognize the Taliban militants as Afghanistan’s new lawful authority.

The ministry also told RIA that Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani was unlikely to head to Russia after leaving his country.

Afghan delegation to meet Taliban in Qatar on Sunday

An Afghanistan peace negotiator said later on Sunday that a delegation representing the Afghan government, including senior official Abdullah Abdullah, will travel to Qatar the same day to meet with representatives of the Taliban.

Fawzi Koofi, a member of the Kabul negotiating team, confirmed to Reuters the delegation would meet with the Taliban in the Persian Gulf state after the militant group earlier entered Kabul.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the Afghan delegation and Taliban representatives would discuss a transition of power, adding that US officials would also be involved.

Pope voices ‘concern’ over Afghanistan, calls for ‘dialogue’

In a related development, Pope Francis expressed his “concern” Sunday over the conflict in Afghanistan, calling for dialogue so that the “battered population” can live in peace.

“I join in the unanimous concern for the situation in Afghanistan,” the pontiff said during the weekly Angelus at the Vatican, Reuters reported.

“I ask all of you to pray with me to the God of peace so that the clamor of weapons might cease and solutions can be found at the table of dialogue.

“Only thus can the battered population of that country – men, women, elderly and children – return to their own homes, and live in peace and security, in total mutual respect.”

Political solution in Afghanistan ‘more urgent than ever’: NATO

Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance said on Sunday that finding a political solution to Afghanistan conflict was more pressing “than ever” as the Taliban stood poised to take power on the outskirts of Kabul.

“We support Afghan efforts to find a political solution to the conflict, which is now more urgent than ever,” an official at the 30-nation alliance told AFP.

The official said “NATO is constantly assessing developments in Afghanistan,” adding, “We are helping to maintain operations at Kabul airport to keep Afghanistan connected with the world.”

“We also maintain our diplomatic presence in Kabul. The security of our personnel is paramount, and we continue to adjust as necessary,” the NATO official added.

Taliban show off US-made war spoils in Kandahar

The Taliban released footage showing captured US-made Afghan military helicopters at the key Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan, which has until recently one of the most important US bases in the country.

The militants have been quick to show off their war spoils in the city, which is generally considered as their spiritual birthplace.

The Taliban posted footage on their social media accounts on Saturday, showing a militant walking around a US-made Black Hawk military helicopter, which is in brown-green camouflage with Afghan Air Force markings, purportedly at a Kandahar airport hangar.

He then walked out and another Black Hawk was seen in the distance on the tarmac.

The Black Hawk inside the hangar was seemingly in storage, with a black sheet covering its windshield and its left engine apparently missing.

Two Russian military helicopters are also seen as another person is heard saying “Mashallah” — an Islamic term of praise. However, it was not clear if any of the helicopters were airworthy.

The helicopters outside the hangar were missing their blades, with a sheet covering the front of one airframe.

It is heard that one of the militants is claiming there are five military helicopters at the airport and several jets.

Washington supplied much of that hardware to the Afghan military, to the tune of $88 billion since 2002.

An Afghan government official confirmed on Friday that Kandahar, the most important city in the south, was under the control of the Taliban as foreign occupying forces complete their withdrawal.

August 15, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Taliban capture 6th provincial capital weeks after rejecting reports of a ceasefire, amid US withdrawal

RT | August 9, 2021

The Taliban have seized control of its sixth provincial capital in Afghanistan within a matter of days, according to a spokesperson for the group, as the militants continue to secure territory after America’s military withdrawal.

The military victory for the Taliban was confirmed by the deputy governor of Samangan Province, home to the city of Aibak. Speaking to AFP, Afghanistan official Sefatullah Samangani declared that “the Taliban have captured the city of Aibak and have complete control over it.”

The Taliban formally took control of the city on Monday, after a “senator surrendered” and asked Afghanistan to withdraw its forces from the area to avoid further conflict.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid declared on Twitter that the city center was completely under its control, while the governor, the police chief, the intelligence department, and all its affiliates were cleared.

The capture of Aibak comes days after Taliban militants seized control of the provincial capital of Sar-e Pul and the region’s fifth-largest city. All major government buildings in the two locations have been secured by Taliban fighters, although Afghan soldiers were reportedly trying to retain control of the Kunduz airport.

The continued military advance of the Taliban throughout Afghanistan follows the group’s rejection of reports that a ceasefire deal had been reached with the country’s government in return for the release of 7,000 prisoners.

Since America’s withdrawal from the region earlier this year, the Taliban claims to have secured 85% of the territory in Afghanistan. Afghan officials dispute this figure, however, claiming it has been exaggerated by the group.

August 9, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Taliban overruns most of Kunduz as Afghan military clings to strategic city’s airport – reports

RT | August 8, 2021

Taliban militants have captured another provincial capital, Sar-e Pul, and most of the fifth-largest city of Kunduz, according to local officials. Afghan special forces have been deployed in a bid to re-take the latter.

The militants seized all the key government buildings in the two cities overnight, pushing the government troops to military installations on their outskirts. The troops are currently clinging onto the airport in Kunduz, in the north of the country.

“Heavy clashes started yesterday afternoon. All government headquarters are in the control of the Taliban. Only the army base and the airport is with ANDSF [Afghan security forces] from where they are resisting the Taliban,” provincial lawmaker Amruddin Wali told Reuters.

Footage circulating online shows the militants roaming the city streets en masse, with the group’s flags hoisted on multiple military vehicles.

Kunduz’s market was destroyed in the fighting, with disturbing footage purporting to show the whole location on fire. It was not immediately clear how exactly the market was obliterated, with some reports suggesting it was targeted by American warplanes supporting the Afghan troops. On Saturday, the US military launched airstrikes against the Taliban in a bid to halt its offensive, sending in B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers and AC-130 Spectre gunships.

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Although the Taliban claimed it was in full control of Kunduz, the government said it had re-deployed special forces units to the city and was trying to push back the militants. A short video released by Afghan military spokesperson Fawad Aman shows special forces troops advancing through the streets, firing at unseen adversaries.

The situation in the northwestern city of Sar-e Pul appears to be similar to that in Kunduz. Its key locations have been overrun by the militants, with government forces retreating to a military base on its fringes.

“Government headquarters, including the governor’s house, police command, and the National Directorate of Security compound, are captured by the Taliban,” Mohammad Noor Rahmani, a Sar-e Pul provincial council member, told Reuters.

Over the past few days, the Taliban has put the government troops under heavy pressure, apparently switching the focus of its offensive from rural areas to major cities. Two provincial capitals, Zaranj in the southwest and Sheberghan in the north, have already fallen into the hands of the militant group.

August 8, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Taliban takes first provincial capital in Afghanistan as city of Zaranj falls into group’s hands

RT | August 6, 2021

Taliban insurgents have captured the city of Zaranj, the capital of Afghanistan’s southwestern Nimroz province. The city is the first provincial capital to fall amid the ongoing Taliban offensive against government troops.

The militants entered the city on Friday afternoon, according to media reports corroborated by footage circulating online. The development was confirmed to Reuters by Nimroz’s police spokesperson, with the official, who remained anonymous for security reasons, blaming the fall of the city on a lack of reinforcements from Afghanistan’s central government.

Footage shared online purports to show Taliban militants entering the city en-masse, on foot as well as riding atop a column of captured government armored vehicles.

The militants reportedly also broke into a local prison, freeing inmates from the facility.

The city apparently fell into hands of the Taliban largely without fighting, imagery from the scene suggests. It was not immediately clear whether the local security forces fled or defected to the Taliban.

In recent weeks, the resurgent group has launched a fresh major offensive against government forces, capturing large swaths of territory and establishing control over multiple border crossings.

The Islamist militants have also put pressure on several provincial capitals, including such major cities as Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west. Before the capture of Zaranj, however, the Taliban’s territorial gains primarily occurred in sparsely-populated rural areas.

August 6, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

In Between Taliban and COVID

BY GILAD ATZMON | AUGUST 4, 2021

Does it take a genius to gather that the colossal failure of the USA’s war in Afghanistan is identical to the disastrous ‘war against COVID’? It’s certainly clear that it is pretty much the same people who devised the fatal strategies that led to a grandiose defeat in these two unnecessary conflicts. We deal with people who adhere to the concept of war of destruction. These are people who do not seek peace, harmony or reconciliation neither with nature nor with other segments of humanity.

Our pandemic ‘strategists’ believed that it was within their powers to wipe SARS CoV 2 from the face of the earth. They were similarly convinced that the Taliban could be eradicated. They were, obviously, catastrophically wrong.

But the progressives and the so-called Left also have an unforgivable part in these catastrophic tales. The Left weren’t responsible for the ‘strategies’ or the grand planning. They weren’t really participants in the neoconservative think tanks, they weren’t involved in Pfizer’s promise to fix the human genome. They weren’t advising Netanyahu, Trump or Johnson’s in 2020 as they weren’t amongst Bush’s advisers back in 2001. But they were the first to support the Ziocon ‘War Against Terror,’ mostly in the name of ‘moral interventionism.’ Similarly, they have been amongst the most enthusiastic supporters of the current experiment in mass human [de-]population.

One doesn’t need to scratch the surface to notice that that the Jewish State also had a central role in these two humongous blunders. The neocon think tanks that pushed America to Afghanistan were of course made of ardent Jewish Zionists. Back in 2003 Ari Shavit wrote in Haaretz “The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history.” The people who volunteered themselves as the guinea pigs in Pfizer’s COVID experiment where of course the Israelis. Netanyahu’s Israel didn’t attempt to “live with COVID,” it instead treated the virus as a contemporary Amalek, an anti-Semitic plague that must be eradicated: the Mossad together with the IDF joined forces in the war against Covid. When it seemed as if number of COVID cases were going down, Israel was fast to declare a victory in the war against the virus.

But the reality is embarrassing. In Afghanistan the Taliban is stronger than ever. America left the country it promised to ‘liberate’ with its tail between its legs. In the fight against COVID, America is equally defeated. In the USA, a CDC study found vaccinated people made up 74% of cases in a beach town outbreak in Massachusetts. And In Israel, Delta has made a spectacularly successful aliya. The vaccinated are now overrepresented amongst Delta cases and equally represented amongst critical cases. A few days ago an Israeli hospital director admitted that 90% of his patients are vaccinated. “The vaccine is waning in front of our eyes,” he said.

It shouldn’t really be me who reminds my fellow peace loving brothers and sisters that loving one’s neighbor may as well mean seeking peace and harmony with the universe as a whole (viruses included).The modernist 19th century military theorist Carl von Clausewitz defined war as “the continuation of politics by other means.” But in the global Zionised universe in which we live, politics is merely the continuation of war. Keeping the world in a conflict is the current global mantra as people are submissive when fearful. This philosophy has sustained Zionism for decades. It kept the Jewish people united for two millennia but it came with a price. Jewish history isn’t exactly a story of tranquility.

August 4, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Why Americans No Longer Trust the Biden Administration

By Ron Paul | August 2, 2021

For libertarians – and even many non-libertarians – it’s not shocking to discover that a US Administration lies and deceives the electorate. For government on all levels, lying to the American people is as American as apple pie. Sometimes the liars are held to account for their deception, but most often they are not.

Watching these early months of the Biden Administration it’s hard not to think that lying, deceiving, and manipulation is rising to a whole new level.

Take “ending the endless war” in Afghanistan. President Biden was cheered for achieving what even Donald Trump could not deliver: an end to the pointless 20 year – and several trillion dollar – war in Afghanistan. By the 20th anniversary of 9/11, we were told, the war would be over.

The only people furious about this decision were the bombmakers at Raytheon and the rest of the military-industrial complex and the laptop warriors in the Beltway think tanks. It turns out, they really didn’t need to worry.

The US is not finally leaving the Afghan people alone to run their country as they see fit. Just this week, Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that the US is increasing – not ending – its airstrikes on Afghanistan. The US would be pulling regular military troops out of the country (though likely keeping CIA, Special Forces, and mercenaries on the ground), but it would continue to bomb Afghanistan using “over the horizon” facilities from the Persian Gulf.

I’m sure that makes Afghan victims of US bombs feel much better.

Then last week Biden announced an “end of the US combat mission” in Iraq by the end of the year. While we’ve heard that line before, still it seemed like good news. However, as usual, the devil was in the details. While the “mission” was over, the US troops would remain in-country in an “advisory role.” This is despite the fact that the Iraqi Parliament formally requested last year that US troops leave the country.

Biden has bombed anti-ISIS militias supported by the Iraqi government twice this year (so far).

The 900 US troops illegally occupying Syrian territory would also remain in-country, the Biden Administration announced last week.

Also, just over a week ago President Biden told us that if we got the vaccine we would not get Covid. Then a few days later his own CDC released data from a Massachusetts study showing that 78 percent of the people who caught Covid were fully vaccinated. Is it any wonder Americans have lost all faith in “the science” as it pours forth from the politicized “scientists” in charge of US public health institutions?

The US mainstream media has morphed into a de-facto arm of the Biden Administration, however, covering up for all of these lies and word-games and holding precisely no one in government accountable. So much for a free media acting as a check on government power.

In fact, any “enemy” country overseas with such a subservient press would be targeted for a State Department color revolution.

Governments lie. We understand that. It is the nature of politics and power. In the absence of independent institutions to hold government accountable, however, such lies become indistinguishable from facts, and soon “freedom” itself becomes slavery, as Orwell wrote. Let’s hope more of America wakes up soon.

Copyright © 2021 by RonPaul Institute

August 2, 2021 Posted by | Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Used Military Bases in Afghanistan to Keep Watch on Entire Region, Russian Diplomat Says

Sputnik – 22.07.2021

MOSCOW – Russia’s special presidential envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, said on Thursday that nearly half of the US military bases in Afghanistan were used to keep strategic tabs on the wider region.

“Of the 19 [US bases] that we know of, somewhat about seven or eight had nothing to do with Afghanistan and had nothing to do with the situation there”, Kabulov told the Echo of Moscow radio station.

The diplomat emphasised that the American contingents were conveniently placed in Afghanistan to be closer to the Middle East, Russia, Central Asia and China.

“[The US military] kept an eye on the Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenal”, Kabulov added.

The United States and NATO began pulling their ground forces out of Afghanistan on 1 May. The withdrawal resulted in a flare-up of tensions between the government forces and the Taliban. The radical movement stepped up the territorial advances and is believed to have captured large rural areas in the country’s north.

July 22, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Whither Afghanistan? Getting Out Is Harder Than Getting In

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 22, 2021

The inability of the United States to comprehend what it was becoming involved in when, in the wake of 9/11, it declared a Global War on Terror, has to be reckoned one of the singular failures of national security policy over the past twenty years. Not only did the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq make bad situations worse, but the fact that no one is Washington was able to define “victory” and think in terms of an exit strategy has meant that the wars and instability are still with us. In their wake has been hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars spent to accomplish absolutely nothing.

As a result, Iraq is unstable and leans more heavily towards America’s adversary Iran than it does to Washington. The Iraqi Parliament has, in fact, asked U.S. forces to leave the country, a request that has been ignored both by Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump actually threatened to freeze Iraqi bank assets to pressure the Iraqis into accepting the continued U.S. occupation. At the same time, American troops illegally present in neighboring Syria, continue to occupy that country’s oil fields to deprive the government in Damascus of much needed resources. Neither Iraq nor Syria threatens the United States in any way.

Given that history, it should be no surprise that the withdrawal from the twenty year-long nation building project in Afghanistan, long overdue, is not quite going as smoothly as the Pentagon and White House apparently planned. U.S. forces pulled out of their principal base in the country, Bagram Air Base, in the middle of the night without informing the incoming Afghan base commander. A frenzy of looting of the left behind equipment followed.

The Taliban are racking up victory after victory against U.S. and NATO trained Afghan government forces who have the disadvantage of having to defend everywhere, making them vulnerable to attacks on an opportunity basis. The Taliban now plausibly claim to control 85% of the countryside, to include crossing points into Pakistan and several important towns and provinces. They recently shocked observers by executing 22 Afghan Army commandos who had run out of ammunition and surrendered. The U.S. government is quietly expecting a similar fate for the thousands of Afghans who collaborated with the regime installed by Washington and is hurriedly arranging for visas to get the most vulnerable out, eventually seeking to resettle them in friendly Middle Eastern countries as well as in the U.S..

By one estimate as many as 18,000 Afghans worked for U.S. forces and they also have families that will have to go with them. There is particular concern that former interpreters, who would have been privy to decision making by Washington, will be most particularly targeted. The Biden White House has responded finally to the urgency of the issue – lives are at stake – by approving special flights to remove the most vulnerable to a third country for processing before determining if they can be allowed to take up residence in the United States or elsewhere.

To be sure, the struggle to rid the world of the wrong kind of terrorists has left the United States weaker and more unfocused than it was in 2001. China, Russia and Iran are already maneuvering to fill the impending power vacuum in Central Asia by coming to terms with the likely Taliban takeover, which might come sooner than Joe Biden expects. If some kind of Afghan coalition government does emerge, it will belong to Russia and China, not the U.S..

Meanwhile, the U.S. military itself, under the Biden Administration, is weaker and more riven by controversy than ever before. A recent 23-page report suggests that since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s February order to “stand down” the entire U.S. military for commanders to address “extremism” in its ranks morale has sunk and many top soldiers have either retired or quit in disgust. During his confirmation hearings, Austin pledged that he would “rid our ranks of racists and extremists” but the reality is quite different, with the witch hunt in the ranks and endless promotion of diversity even hurting normal military readiness training.

By next month the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will be reduced to a battalion of infantry to guard the Embassy and CIA station in Kabul, which is itself not sustainable unless some kind of workable Afghan government coalition can be achieved. Given the recent Taliban successes, that outcome appears to be increasingly unlikely. Maintaining the Embassy will also require a viable lifeline to the city’s airport and talks are underway with Turkey to determine if Ankara will be willing to base a stay behind battalion to maintain the air link. The Taliban have already announced that a Turkish presence at the airport will be unacceptable and warned Turkey that there would be revenge attacks against any remaining NATO troops after the U.S. pulls out. Their spokesman issued a statement declaring that “The continuation of Turkey’s occupation will provoke feelings of hatred and enmity in our country towards Turkish officials, and will harm bilateral relations.”

The U.S. is also seeking an over the horizon offensive capability once the military has formally left Afghanistan. The intention would be to be able to strike targets in Afghanistan if a new government forms any alliances with terrorist groups that potentially threaten the United States, as unlikely as that might be. At the present time, there are few options as the U.S. would not be able to launch cruise missile or airstrikes through the neighboring countries that surround Afghanistan to the south, east and west, though a long-distance strike from warships in the Persian Gulf is technically possible.

To the north there are, however, former Soviet central Asian states, the so-called “‘Stans,” that might be suitable for hosting some arrangement to base American equipment, aircraft and a caretaker force. Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan might be amenable to such a development, but both Tajikistan and Kazakhstan are members of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that any U.S. presence in a CSTO country would need the approval of the alliance, which the Kremlin will veto. One might suggest that there is mistrust about the reliability of Joe Biden and company as a strategic partner, even though there is widespread concern that Afghanistan might become a rogue state. Nevertheless, Washington’s bullying in Iraq, Syria and also against Iran has failed to convince anyone that the U.S. Air Force would make a good neighbor.

So getting out of Afghanistan will be a lot trickier than going in. The U.S. clearly wants to have some ability to intervene using air resources if the Taliban take over and misbehave, but that just might be a fantasy as the door is closing on options while China is waiting for its own door to open to bring the Afghans into their New Silk Road. And there is no escaping the fact that the entire Afghan adventure was one hell of a waste of lives and resources. Next time, maybe Washington will hesitate to charge in, but given the lack of any deep thinking going on in the White House, I suspect we Americans could easily find ourselves in yet another Afghanistan.

July 22, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Taliban Claim Control of Some 90% of Afghanistan’s Border Areas

Sputnik – 22.07.2021

The Taliban controls approximately 90% of Afghanistan’s border with neighbouring countries, Zabiullah Mujahid, the movement’s spokesman, told Sputnik on Thursday.

“The borders of Afghanistan with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran — about 90% of the borders are under our control … The border with Turkmenistan and the border with Iran are completely under our control. The borders of Pakistan (with the exception of a few small sections) are also under our control”, Mujahid said.

The statement comes after Moscow noted earlier in the day that the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan had resulted in a major shift, with the Taliban taking almost complete control of the Tajik border.

The war-torn nation has been witnessing major clashes between the Taliban movement and government forces in recent months. The militants gained momentum as American troops started pulling out on 1 May, in accordance with an agreement that the Taliban and the United States struck in Doha in February 2020.

According to the Taliban, its forces are now in control of nearly 85 percent of Afghanistan.

July 22, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

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