Australia’s War Crimes and Culture of impunity
By Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 8, 2020
There is yet no reckoning for Australia’s SAS war crimes in Afghanistan, although details of horrendous atrocities are coming to light. A 2016 report detailing the extent of torture and extrajudicial killings by the Australian SAS forces in Afghanistan have been described as “fuelled by blood lust”, and compared on a scale to the infamous torture and murder practices at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The 2016 report which has recently been seen by two leading Australian news outlets, was compiled by sociologist Dr Samantha Crompvoets. Testimonies of war crimes, accompanied by the normalisation of such action and recurring impunity, have been characterised by a reliability in narration among different participants, pointing towards routine practices that escalated over time.
Notably, the report points towards an adulation of violence. The Australian special forces working alongside British and US counterparts held up the latter as the pinnacle of violence to emulate. However, the torture and killing of Afghan civilians by the Australian SAS is held on a par in terms of desensitisation and normalisation. A report earlier in March this year, which is based upon the witnessing of an execution of an Afghan man, states, “The visual image to me was, the guy had his hands up and then it was almost like target practice for that soldier.”
Human rights organisations in Australia and Afghanistan have called upon the Australian government to release the inquiry report into war crimes committed by the SAS, which commenced in 2016, in a manner which would hold the country accountable to upholding International Humanitarian Law. The open letter makes an important point that resonates even in relation to other countries subject to foreign intervention and impunity for the perpetrators. It states, “The Afghan people have remained trapped in an unbroken cycle of a 40 year long conflict which is profoundly rooted in a culture of impunity, with many actors operating in total disregard of local and international laws and norms in the firm belief that nobody will ever hold them accountable.”
Under the guise of foreign intervention and the democracy narrative which is used to sell war to the public, impunity for human rights violations is being cultivated. The lack of accountability is related to several processes, including policy, leadership failure, and dysfunctional communication between divisions; the latter amounting to secrecy that develops further possibilities for impunity.
One story featured in Australian media in March this year detailed the killing of an Afghan man who posed no threat to soldiers, and whose corpse was chewed upon by an assault dog. In another case captured on camera, another Afghan man, again posing no danger, is shot three times at point blank range – for no other reason than abuse of power, as indicated by the perpetrator.
Democracy and war crimes go hand in hand when it comes to foreign intervention and the bloody trail they leave behind. In an investigation by the Australian Defence Forces (ADF), the soldier who killed the Afghan man in a field was exonerated and is still serving in the Australian special forces; the narrative being that the victim had been seen with a radio, despite evidence to the contrary.
Such coverups are a regular occurrence which serve to perpetrate additional human rights violations. It is possible that the Australian government, as indicated by Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, will agree to publish parts of the report for “transparency” this month. The so-called War on Terror has unleashed a brand of state terror on targeted countries which so far has been met with an ingrained reticence from leaders to investigate accusations of war crimes. Between the bureaucratic delays of the International Criminal Court, and opposition to the institution by world leaders intent on saving the culture of impunity, there is little chance of implementing justice unless the international justice system is pressured to work against the globalisation of war.
‘Psychos’ fueled by ‘blood lust,’ Australian special forces tortured and executed prisoners in Afghanistan – report
RT | October 28, 2020
A disturbing new report blows the lid on the shameful conduct of Australian special forces soldiers in Afghanistan, accusing them of waging a campaign of torture and murder across the war-torn country, and hiding the evidence.
When Australia’s elite SAS soldiers would raid villages in Afghanistan, they brought terror and death with them, a report seen by Melbourne newspaper The Age alleges. The special forces “would take the men and boys to these guest houses and interrogate them, meaning tie them up and torture them,” the report states.
By the time the SAS units left, “the men and boys would be found dead, shot in the head, sometimes blindfolded and throats slit. These are corroborated accounts,” it continues, comparing the alleged war crimes to the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, and to the US’ mistreatment of detainees in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.
The report was commissioned by then-Army chief Angus Campbell in 2016, and an upcoming Inspector-General report into war crimes by senior judge Paul Brereton has confirmed many of its findings, The Age claimed. Compiled by defense consultant Samantha Crompvoets, the report is based on interviews with soldiers and whistleblowers, who told Cormpvoets some grizzly tales of “competition killing and blood lust.”
In one instance, two “14-year-old boys suspected of being Taliban sympathisers had their throats slit … the bodies were bagged and thrown into a nearby river.” In others, unarmed Afghans were shot in the back as they ran away.
According to the report, war crimes allegations made by NGOs and SAS staff were quashed by the special forces leadership in Afghanistan. Soldiers involved in these crimes allegedly covered them up, and expected their comrades to keep quiet. Meanwhile, the perpetrators “gloated about” their killings.
“Soldiers would do bad stuff to fit in. It becomes part of the banter,” one witness recalled. Another stated: “guys just had this blood lust. Psychos. Absolute psychos. And we bred them.”
Despite the gruesome details revealed in the report, the Australian operators were envious of their British and American counterparts, one informant told Crompvoets.
“Whatever we do, though, I can tell you the Brits and the US are far, far worse. I’ve watched our young guys stand by and hero worship what they were doing, salivating at how the US were torturing people,” the informant said.
Crompvoets’ report alleges that the majority of crimes were committed by a small group of patrol commanders. Brereton’s inquiry found the same, The Age reported. The newspaper said that Brereton will make war crimes referrals to the Australian Federal Police for a number of these soldiers, charges that will be contested by the Department of Defence.
Australian troops have been deployed in Afghanistan since 2001, with combat operations ceasing in 2014. Around 150 Australian soldiers and civilian staff remain in the country in support and advisory roles.
US Military Evacuates Largest Base in Afghanistan
Al-Manar | October 13, 2020
The US forces started evacuating their largest base in Afghanistan, according to media reports which added that it lies to the north of the capital, Kabul.
An administrative official in the Afghan Senate said that the US forces began demolishing the buildings at Bagram air base and moving their equipment to Pakistan.
The Afghan Senate harshly criticized the US forces for demolishing the buildings, demanding that they hand over the military equipment in the base to the Afghani forces.
NATO refuses to commit to withdrawal from Afghanistan
Press TV – October 9, 2020
NATO has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement to pull out all of US forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year, saying that members of the military alliance will decide together on when to withdraw forces from the war-ravaged country.
Trump announced on Twitter on Wednesday that he was going to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted to the president’s remarks on Thursday, saying that the military alliance will end its mission in Afghanistan only when conditions on the ground permit.
“We decided to go into Afghanistan together, we will make decisions on future adjustments together, and when the time is right, we will leave together,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference.
NATO deployed forces to Afghanistan following the 2001 US-led invasion to topple the Taliban-run government, on the pretext of fighting terrorism following the September 11 attacks in New York.
Afghanistan has been gripped by insecurity since the US and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington’s so-called ‘war on terror’ 19 years ago. Many parts of the country remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of US-led foreign troops.
American forces have since remained bogged down in the country through the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and now, Donald Trump.
In an interview on Thursday Trump also said that US forces are “down to 4,000 troops in Afghanistan. I’ll have them home by the end of the year. They’re coming home, you know, as we speak. Nineteen years is enough.”
Analysts say Trump, trailing in polls just weeks ahead of the November 3 presidential election, made the withdrawal announcement to show he is making good on his 2016 promise to end “endless wars.”
Stoltenberg, however, said NATO would only leave Afghanistan when it could do so without the risk of the country once again becoming a haven for militants.
“We will make decisions based on the conditions on the ground, because we think it is extremely important to continue to be committed to the future of Afghanistan, because it is in our interest to preserve the long-term security of Afghanistan,” he added.
Trump’s announcement was, however, welcomed by the Afghan Taliban militant group on Thursday.
A spokesman for the group, Mohammad Naeem, described Trump’s announcement as “a positive step towards the implementation of [the] Doha agreement.”
In a deal reached between the US and the Taliban earlier this year in the Qatari capital, Doha, the United States promised to pull out all its troops by mid-2021 in return for the Taliban to stop their attacks on US-led occupation foreign forces in Afghanistan.
Some 4,500 American troops are currently on the ground in Afghanistan, reduced from over 12,000 when the deal was signed in February.
The Taliban also agreed to negotiate a permanent ceasefire and a power-sharing formula with the Afghan government.
The Afghan government and Taliban last month opened peace talks in Qatar, even as key differences, including over a ceasefire, remain between the two sides.
NATO’s recent refusal to commit to withdrawal, according to observers, puts the complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy at a time when Afghanistan continues to suffer from a series of attacks — claimed either by the Taliban or the Daesh terrorist group — which took dozens of civilians’ lives.
In the meantime, Daesh has also been securing a foothold in Afghanistan.
The US has been largely blamed for relocating remnants of the terrorist group to Afghanistan following their defeat in Iraq and Syria.
The US-led military alliance and NATO are also blamed for turning Afghanistan into one of the world’s main opium producers over the last two decades, as opium has become a source for terrorist financing in the war-ravaged country.
According to the United Nations, more than 80 percent of the world’s opium is produced in Afghanistan and that the bulk of narcotics produced in the country is destined for European states.
A high-ranking Iranian official said earlier this year that the production of narcotic drugs has seen a fifty-fold increase over a span of 17 years in Afghanistan.
Director general of the Iran Drug Control Headquarters, Eskandar Momeni, said American planes as well as those belonging to the US-led military alliance and NATO are engaged in transporting illicit drugs.
Iran, located at the crossroad of international drug smuggling from Afghanistan, has long been fighting armed drug smugglers in its eastern and southeastern borders. Thousands of Iranian security forces have lost their lives in the clashes.
Analysts believe Washington, which has repeatedly named Iran, Russia and China as its enemies, intends to create insecurity and trouble on the borders of these countries through Afghanistan.
India’s overture to Taliban comes too late
The Taliban delegation at the opening ceremony of intra-Afghan talks, Doha, Qatar, September 12, 2020
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 15, 2020
The US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad was roundly criticised by Indian commentators when he last passed through Delhi in May and advised the officials he met with an earthy sense of realism and foreboding that it’s high time they got down from the high horse to try and begin a conversation with the Taliban.
The advice was well-meaning and pragmatic but the sense of urgency was lacking in Delhi which was rooted in the belief that the peace talks were aeons away. Indeed, the Afghan peace process was struggling to be born at that time but it was already clear that the US was determined to push for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel of the forever war in time for President Trump to make some grand announcement on the eve of the November election.
Incidentally, a poll conducted by the New York-based Eurasia Group Foundation this week shows that two-thirds of Americans support Trump’s deal with the Taliban to extricate the US from the 19-year war in Afghanistan — and, only 10-15% favour continued military deployment.
Instead of rationally applying their mind, the Indian officials reportedly made a litany of pre-conditions to Khalilzad — the issue of terror emanating from Pakistan impacting peace in Afghanistan, “protection of rights of all sections of the Afghan society, including Afghan Hindus and Sikhs,” and so on.
The Indian readout said, “It was emphasised (to Khalilzad) that putting an end to terrorist safe havens and sanctuaries is necessary for enduring and sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan.” It added that India also expressed its deep “concern at the upsurge in violence” and extended support for a “call for an immediate ceasefire” and need to “assist the people of Afghanistan in dealing with coronavirus pandemic.”
Simply put, our chaps were hanging tough. Suffice to say, when Khalilzad arrives in Delhi later today for yet another stopover, he is sure to get a pleasant surprise. After much huffing and puffing, the Indian establishment has calmed down and is doing precisely what he told them to do in May.
On top of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar addressing the Doha forum virtually on September 12, a senior officer from his ministry was rushed to Qatar to be in the conference hall for the opening ceremony of the intra-Afghan talks. A senior Indian official has since claimed, “There is no ambiguity on the Indian position vis-à-vis engagement with Afghan parties as Indian delegation sat on the same table as the Afghan government as well as the Taliban. The host nation Qatar could have only made this possible after talking to all principal stake-holders in the Afghan dialogue.”
The unconditional U-turn in India’s Taliban policy is so complete that the Indian establishment is overnight celebrating the retreat as a grand historic success of diplomacy. Oh, what an ecstatic moment — to be able to sit around a big table with the Taliban!
The high probability is that Indians will have to settle for the shade for quite a while. From this point onward, the advantage goes to the Taliban — and Pakistan. The Taliban has reestablished control over many Afghan districts and killed tens of thousands of US-backed Afghan forces. With dwindling American support, Afghan forces’ capacity to withstand Taliban attacks will be significantly reduced in the period ahead.
That means the Taliban is set to gain control of even more territories unless it agrees to an immediate ceasefire, which seems unlikely. Just look at today’s developments — a district governor in Logar province reported that the Taliban attacked his residence killing one of his brothers and a personal bodyguard, wounding another brother; an intelligence agency officer and three others were wounded in Jalalabad city when the vehicle of the spy agency was ambushed in broad daylight with an improvised explosive device.
The main problem for India is that it stands in abject isolation today apropos the Afghan situation. Its ability to influence the course of the intra-Afghan negotiations is nil. None of the demands that Indian officials made to Khalilzad in May have been fulfilled. The Taliban maintains a strategic ambivalence on where it stands on a host of contentious issues such as the form of future government, women’s rights, new constitution and so on.
Alas, the Modi government remained the pillion rider on the Harley-Davidson bike all the way through the past decade and a half, but the bike is about to speed away to the far horizon heading for North America. Paradoxically, India’s best option today might be to act as a “spoiler”, but then, with the protracted standoff with China in Ladakh and with the LOC and J&K in a state of tension, a military deployment to Afghanistan is simply beyond India’s reach.
This is where the recent reshuffle of the Taliban delegation at the Doha talks assumes significance. Much speculation surrounds the appointment of the hardline cleric Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Haqqani as the Taliban’s chief negotiator for peace talks.
So far, all we know is that the ultraconservative Mawlawi Haqqani who replaces the previous “moderate” leadership of Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai and Mullah Baradar is a close associate of the Taliban supremo Haibatullah Akhunzada, and his appointment could be an attempt by the core leadership to reassert its direct control over the upcoming negotiations in Qatar.
But the big question is about Mawlawi Haqqani’s standing with Pakistan. The cleric cannot be a stranger to the Pakistani security establishment, since he had spent years lying low in Quetta, where the Afghan Taliban leadership has been based since the US invasion in 2001, and until recently he ran a madrasah from where he led the Taliban’s judiciary and headed a powerful council of clerics that issued religious edicts to regulate the ideology of the Islamic Emirate.
The point is Mawlawi Haqqani, who is in his early 60s, has been propelled into the spotlight and appointed the Taliban’s chief negotiator for peace talks just when the last hurdle of exchange of prisoners was overcome and the stage was being set in Doha for the curtain to rise.
Who stands to gain? China is actively promoting the extension of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan. And Pakistan just tightened its grip on the peace talks. The crunch time has come. Pakistan holds a veto card and is determined to use it to marginalise India from the Afghan peace process. Given the Modi government’s hostility toward Pakistan and China, nothing else needs be expected.
The assassination attempt on First Vice-President Amrullah Saleh a week ago should be taken as a stark warning. India has lost the proxy war and this is how victorious Afghan groups have always entered the home stretch. At the very least, our pathway to the Taliban preferably should have run parallel with an overture to Pakistan. Khalilzad cannot do much to help us now.
President Ghani says Afghan government fulfilled all commitments for Taliban peace talks
Press TV – September 2, 2020
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani says the government has fulfilled all its commitments for peace negotiations with the Taliban.
“The government has fulfilled all its commitments in the peace process that the international community had hoped for,” the president said at a meeting with a team of government-backed negotiators at the presidential palace on Wednesday, his office reported.
On Monday, Kabul resumed the release of Taliban prisoners, a pre-condition to negotiations.
“The release of Taliban prisoners is a clear demonstration of the government’s commitment to peace.”
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of elders, has already approved the release of 400 imprisoned Taliban militants, who had been involved in serious crimes in Afghanistan, for the sake of peace talks.
A senior government official, who asked not to be named, told AFP on Wednesday that at least 200 inmates have been freed since Monday and the process “will continue today too.”
In return, the Taliban have freed four Afghan commandos and are expected to release two more on Wednesday, according to a Taliban official.
Meanwhile, Ghani’s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said in a posting on Twitter, “We expect the Taliban to live up to their commitments on the release of the remaining captives.”
The prisoner swap was agreed to in a deal between the Taliban and the United States. The agreement was signed in the Qatari capital, Doha, on February 29.
Under the deal, the Taliban agreed to halt their attacks on international forces in return for the US military’s phased withdrawal from Afghanistan and the prisoner exchange with the government in Kabul.
The Afghan government, which was not a signatory to the accord, was required to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners. The militants, for their part, were obliged to free 1,000 government captives.
Ghani said a “critical stage of peace” had been reached, noting that the talks would help reduce violence and finalize a permanent ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Kabul has dispatched a “small technical team” to Qatar to prepare for negotiations.
Najia Anwari, spokeswoman for the State Ministry for Peace Affairs, told AFP that the government’s negotiators will also leave for Doha “very soon.”
A Pakistani Olive Branch Extended In Efforts to End the Afghani Conflict
By Vladimir Odintsov – New Eastern Outlook – 30.08.2020
In the face of the obvious failure of US policy in Afghanistan, Pakistan has stepped up its efforts to peacefully resolve the Afghani conflict.
On August 24, at the invitation of Pakistani Foreign Ministry, a delegation of the Taliban (movement banned in the Russian Federation – ed.), headed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived from Doha, capital of Qatar, to meet both civilian and military representatives of Pakistan. Its purpose was to discuss the latest developments in the peace process in Afghanistan and further steps in this direction, improving the security situation for civilians in Afghanistan as well as trade between the two neighboring countries, as confirmed by Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen on his Twitter.
This meeting was already the third of its kind: previously the parties met in October 2019 at the Pakistani Foreign Ministry and in February this year in Doha. This third visit of the Taliban delegation, as intended by those behind it, should contribute to resolving the contradictions that have arisen in recent days on the eve of the intra-Afghan peace talks that did not start on August 20 and were postponed to a later date, and were part of the agreement signed in Doha in February between the Taliban and the United States. Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi emphasized in his statement that Islamabad invited the Taliban to emphasize the importance of negotiations, adding that negotiations are “the only way forward” in Afghanistan. “It is the Afghanis who need reconciliation, and our task is mediating,” he said. “The main goal is to ensure peace, and the next stage should be the beginning of an intra-Afghan dialogue.”
In a statement in connection with this meeting, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry highlighted Islamabad’s positive contribution to the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan, which culminated in the signing of a peace agreement between the US and the Taliban in Doha on February 29, 2020. Therefore, Pakistani officials are confident that Afghani stakeholders must seize this historic opportunity to secure a comprehensive political negotiated solution to the Afghani conflict. Islamabad called on the international community to step up its participation in the reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan, by creating the necessary economic opportunities and conditions conducive to the return of Afghani refugees to their homeland.
Islamabad leaping to action in the peaceful resolution of the Afghani crisis is in part due to Washington’s unrelenting criticism of Pakistan for “insufficient efforts to counter Afghani anti-government forces,” which the US State Department has repeatedly noted in its reports. In particular, the United States emphasizes how Pakistan failed to prevent a number of attacks by militants from its territory against Afghanistan, and makes minimal efforts to suppress the activities of terrorist organizations. At the same time, it is especially clear Islamabad only conducted anti-terrorist operations against those militants who carried out attacks specifically on Pakistani territory. This critical position has been repeatedly voiced by the current Afghani authorities close to the United States, accusing Islamabad of supporting the Taliban and other militants operating in the weakly defended border, indicating, in particular, that Taliban leaders are based in cities along the Pakistani-Afghani border, including Quetta and Peshawar.
Washington’s latest accusations against Islamabad were voiced in the annual report on terrorism published by the US State Department on June 24. In it, in particular, it was noted that Pakistan is a haven for terrorists and terrorist groups operating in South Asia, such as the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and aysh-e-Mohammad (all banned in the Russian Federation), and the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Pakistani army have been accused of inaction. In addition, the State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report indicated that religious minorities and children are frequent victims of the slave trade in Pakistan.
For these reasons and for alleged “insufficient support by the Pakistani authorities for the American strategy on South Asia” in 2018, the United States refused to provide financial assistance to Islamabad in the amount of $300 million. This has already caused Islamabad’s harsh discontent with such assessments of Washington’s actions by Pakistan, since the indicated amount was supposed to be not help, but compensation for funds already spent by this country on countering terrorism.
However, today everyone is already well aware that Washington’s criticism of Pakistan in recent years is primarily due to the desire of the current American authorities to shift the blame for the apparent failure of their policy in Afghanistan to a third party, including the deaths here of more than two thousand American soldiers as well as over 20 thousand injuries, hundreds of billions of dollars worthlessly spent on goals incomprehensible to the public, which was more than enough to have long ago made Afghanistan a flourishing state in many ways. An important factor in such attacks by the Donald Trump administration on the Pakistani authorities is also the establishment of closer bilateral relations between Pakistan and China, as a result of which the traditional ties between America and Pakistan have all but disintegrated.
Although it is still early to speak into the results of the third meeting of Pakistani representatives and the Taliban, it is nevertheless obvious that the negotiations that took place in the current situation were very necessary in hopes to settle the Afghani conflict. And once again it was Islamabad who extended the olive branch in an effort to achieve peace in Afghanistan.
US Forced to Flee Afghanistan, Iraq and Now Syria
By Valery Kulikov – New Eastern Outlook – 28.08.2020
Multiple missile strikes carried out in recent weeks on American military facilities and overseas bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria indicate that a growing number of people living in countries that have endured American military invasions have had enough of America’s intervention and are fed up with Washington’s policy.
The level of dissatisfaction among the Afghan people with the US military presence in Afghanistan has already received extensive coverage in the media, and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has even been forced to declare that the US will pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan by May 2021.
Outside Afghanistan, anti-American sentiment has long prevailed among people living in Syria and Iraq, which has not only been voiced through peaceful means, such as holding anti-American protests or appealing to the UN to demand the American troops be withdrawn.
Powerful explosions sparked a raging fire in the late hours of July 28 at the Majid al Tamimi Airbase in Iraq, where both Iraqi and American soldiers are stationed. This was the second strike to be carried out within the space of the same day. In an attack earlier that day, three rockets were launched on the territory of the US Camp Taji base located north of Baghdad.
On August 10, an explosion near the Iraqi border with Kuwait hit convoys supplying US-led coalition forces with military equipment. On the same day, another rocket attack struck near the US Embassy in Baghdad. The actual territory of the American Embassy was hit by missiles on July 5, and after another attack on the embassy on June 11, Washington was forced to negotiate reducing the US military presence in Iraq with Baghdad.
The Iraqi media notes that attacks on American military facilities are carried out on almost a weekly basis in Iraq, and although there are no casualties or people left injured in many of these attacks according to official data, the infrastructure of the military facilities has suffered material damage. At the same time, the threat of far more serious attacks being carried out in the near future has not been dismissed by the US.
According to the al-Hadath TV channel based in Dubai, Iraq and the United States came to an agreement on August 22 in response to the significant increase in the number of protests being held in Iraq against the US military presence in the country, agreeing to relocate American troops and equipment from Camp Taji north of Baghdad to Erbil — the capital of the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Almost all the troops are now known to have been moved to the military base in Erbil, in what was the largest withdrawal of US troops from an American military base in the Middle East.
There are also more and more reports coming from Syria about missile attacks on US military bases, especially in the northeast of the country in the al-Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor governorates. The Syrian Al-Watan newspaper reported that one of these attacks targeted a US military base in the town of al-Shaddadah, the administrative center of the al-Hasakah governorate in northeastern Syria, which was hit by rockets in early August. In May, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that another armed attack was carried out on the US military using machine guns and grenades, in which at least eight people were injured.
In some articles, observers claim that the American facilities targeted in these attacks are being used as infrastructure to protect oil fields and for the illegal production of Syrian oil. For instance, one of these attacks carried out in mid-August targeted an American military base near the Conoco gas field (north of the Deir ez-Zor governorate), which is controlled by the US and Kurdish armed groups. As anti-American sentiment gains momentum, and with periodic attacks being carried out on American targets in Syria, the United States has already begun drafting a special combat unit in Syria to protect oil fields east of the Euphrates. According to local sources, this special unit includes ethnic Arabs drafted from the ranks of the militia fighters in the Washington-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a mainly Kurdish militia which forms the backbone of the SDF. However, local tribes are increasingly taking a stand against the presence of American armed forces and their SDF henchmen in Syria. According to Al-Masdar News, one of these clashes took place on August 17, when fighters from the Al-Baggara tribe reportedly drove SDF forces out of the village of Jadid Baggara in a rural part of Deir ez-Zor governorate in eastern Syria. It is indeed the eastern regions of Syria where numerous protests are being held against military occupation and new US sanctions, which are trying to put the Syrian government in a difficult position to prevent Damascus and its allies from working together to rebuild their vision of Syria.
Given these circumstances, US President Donald Trump has been repeating his intention to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria more and more frequently. Donald Trump made another remark about withdrawing US troops from Iraq at a press briefing on August 19 that was streamed on the White House Twitter account. In Trump’s opinion, the US army should never have gone into the Middle East, and he recalled that the United States is continuing to reduce the number of American troops stationed in Afghanistan.
It should not be forgotten that during a speech Donald Trump gave on June 13, addressed to graduates of the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York, he said: “We are restoring the fundamental principles that the job of the American soldier is not to rebuild foreign nations […].” In Trump’s own words, there is now “a renewed, clear-eyed focus on defending America’s vital interests.”
However, on June 9, Donald Trump informed members of Congress from both the Senate and the House of Representatives that Washington will continue operations against DAESH, al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other related groups listed as terrorist organizations and based in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Niger.
Yet considering how people living in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria have railed against the presence of US troops and military bases in their countries, one could expect to see similar acts of protest in the very near future in other countries around the world where more than 600 US military bases are hosted.
Democrats’ election platform demands end to ‘forever wars’ — most of which were launched last time Biden held office
By Helen Buyniski | RT | August 17, 2020
The Democratic Party’s 2020 electoral platform includes a call to end the US’ “forever wars” – which sounds great, except that a Democratic president started many of those wars and the party has stonewalled efforts to end them.
“Democrats know it’s time to bring nearly two decades of unceasing conflict to an end,” the platform, released in draft form on Monday and expected to be approved by Democratic leaders later this week, reads.
It’s a relatively uncontroversial statement in itself: at nearly 19 years and counting, the US war in Afghanistan is the longest conflict in American history. The various satellite wars that have sprung up as part of the “War on Terror” have devastated large swathes of the Middle East – and the US itself, which has spent upwards of $6 trillion on fighting them while much of the country slid into a permanent recession – over the past two decades.
However, the responsibility for many of those satellite conflicts lies with Democrat Barack Obama’s administration, which liberally bombed Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in addition to Afghanistan and Iraq, turning the already-disastrous two-front War on Terror of his predecessor George W. Bush into a regional quagmire. Democratic candidate Joe Biden was Obama’s vice president, cheering those wars on and defending his boss’ decisions. Now, the party wants Americans to believe only he can put an end to them.
The 2020 platform promises a “durable and inclusive political settlement in Afghanistan” along with an end to US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and a repeal of the threadbare 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that has been repeatedly (mis)used to excuse US interventions in the Middle East under the guise of fighting terrorism. All great ideas, but the party has been here before.
Despite receiving the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after his inauguration, Obama didn’t bring the peace he promised in his 2008 campaign – he just made war more palatable to the liberals who had previously protested against it. By dramatically expanding the US drone program and cloaking murderous airstrikes in the warm fuzzy rhetoric of spreading democracy and “responsibility to protect,” Obama, his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Democrats in his administration took the wars out of sight, and out of mind for the average American.
Even while taking credit for “ending” the war in Iraq, launched in 2003 on the fraudulent pretext that leader Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction and/or was somehow involved in the 9/11 terror attacks, Obama subsequently returned US troops to Iraq under the pretext of fighting the Islamic State terror group (IS, ISIS/ISIL). However, IS is widely considered an outgrowth of the US’ botched Iraq policy, which destabilized the region by flooding the country with many of the suddenly-unemployed (but still well-armed) remnants of Saddam Hussein’s military. At the same time, the CIA has a long history of supporting terror groups that dovetail with its political aims, from arming and training al-Qaeda’s predecessors to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan to arming and training so-called “moderate rebels” whose tactics are often indistinguishable from ISIL or al-Qaeda to take out the Syrian government. Terrorism has thrived amid the war “against” it.
That the Democrats should campaign in 2020 on ending forever wars suggests they might have learned something from 2016, when then-candidate Donald Trump pledged to do just that, luring disaffected liberals who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for notorious warmonger Hillary Clinton. Her flippant dismissal of the brutal murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi – “We came, we saw, he died!” – remains chilling years after she helped reduce the country with the highest standard of living on the African continent to a failed state where slaves are sold in open markets.
But while Trump has profoundly failed to keep his end-the-wars promise, instead increasing the number of drone strikes beyond Obama’s sky-high levels, even Trump’s minimal efforts to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan have been ferociously opposed by the Democrats.
Indeed, the only foreign policy acts the self-styled #Resistance has praised from their political nemesis have been his bombings of Syria in response to extremely dubious reports of gas attacks by the Assad government. CNN’s Fareed Zakaria claimed the strike represented the day Trump “became president of the United States.”
The disingenuous call to end the military quagmires is far from the only lofty pledge embedded in the Democrats’ platform, which alternates between eye-rolling social-justice pandering and common-sense measures with broad appeal.
The party has also pledged to “end the Trump Administration’s politicization of the armed forces,” improve healthcare for veterans, “root out systemic racism from our military justice system,” and “prioritize more effective and less costly diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement tools” over military invasions in conducting foreign policy.
It remains to be seen which, if any, of those promises they will keep.
Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Twitter @velocirapture23
US intelligence saying IRAN is paying bounties to kill Americans in Afghanistan is pure parody
By Scott Ritter | RT | August 18, 2020
It was Russia in June, now it’s Tehran. Don’t US analysts understand that Taliban fighters really don’t need any more motivation to target American troops? This is simply politicized (un)intelligence that isn’t fooling anyone.
According to CNN, the Iranian government has paid “bounties” to the Haqqani network, a terrorist group with close links to the Taliban, for six attacks on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2019, including one on December 11 which targeted Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which wounded four US personnel.
This explosive allegation was contained in a Pentagon briefing document which was reviewed by CNN. While the bounties mentioned were attributed to an unnamed “foreign government,” CNN claims that sources “familiar with” the intelligence named the country as Iran. These bounties, and the attacks on US personnel they underwrote, played a role in the deliberations that led to the assassination of Major General Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force, by US forces in early January 2020, the network reported.
The CNN report comes on the heels of similar allegations regarding “bounties” paid by Russian military intelligence to the Taliban, likewise for the purpose of underwriting attacks on US and coalition personnel in Afghanistan. The Russian bounty story has since turned out to have been based upon uncorroborated raw intelligence deemed by senior US officials as being too poorly sourced to be actionable by the president or his senior advisers. The intelligence was leaked to the press regardless, in what appeared to be an effort to undermine President Trump’s ongoing efforts to forge a peace agreement with the Taliban and to embarrass him in the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.
At first blush, it appears that the CNN reporting is cut from the same cloth as was the Russian “bounty” story. First and foremost (as the CNN reports notes), the Haqqani network did not, and does not, need financial incentives from outside agencies to motivate it to carry out attacks against US and/or coalition targets. As such, even if payments were in fact sent from Iran to the Haqqani network, the likelihood that they were linked to the December 11 attack, or any other, is virtually nil.
The linkage attributed to the December 11 attack on Bagram Air Base and the decision by the US to assassinate Qassem Soleimani is likewise tenuous. In the days, weeks and months following the Soleimani assassination, the Trump administration was called to task by Congress and the media about its justification for the Soleimani strike. While a great deal of weight was given to a rocket attack on K-2 Air Base in Iraq on December 27 that killed a US civilian contractor, there was no mention at any time about any Iranian “bounty” scheme ongoing inside Afghanistan, despite the fact that a direct correlation between such a “bounty” and the need to kill Soleimani would have been a stronger argument in favor of the attack on the Iranian general.
US intelligence has claimed that Iran has been providing “modest” amounts of armaments to the Taliban on an ongoing basis since 2007, something both the Taliban and Iran deny. According to statements made by US intelligence spokespersons in November 2019, this assistance was beefed up in 2015 to assist the Taliban in confronting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) inside Afghanistan. No mention was made of any “bounty” scheme, although Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did link the Iranian assistance to an attack on US forces in May 2019.
While there is evidence to suggest that Iran and the Taliban enjoyed some sort of a relationship dating back to 2007, this relationship seemed focused on supporting Taliban forces based out of western Afghanistan, along the border with Iran; there was no evidence that this relationship included the payment of “bounties” for targeting US personnel.
Moreover, there was no suggestion that at the time of the December 27, 2019 attack on Bagram Air Base, Iran was providing support to the Haqqani network, a Sunni terrorist organization with close links to Pakistani intelligence and which operates out of the Pakistani city of Quetta. Indeed, the first indication of an Iranian connection to the Haqqani network came in the aftermath of the signing of the US-Taliban peace agreement in February 2020, when fringe elements of the Taliban, including allies within the Haqqani network, broke away in order to continue the struggle against the US in Afghanistan.
Even this reporting is sketchy – the alleged Iranian-Taliban-Haqqani cooperation was in the “early stages of forming,” not indicative of the kind of maturity that would have had to exist to sustain any viable bounty scheme. Moreover, any cooperation that was still in its infancy in February 2020, could not have been the basis of an arrangement regarding an attack that took place in December 2019. Finally, an Iranian-Haqqani bounty scheme would fly in the face of the public commitment by the Haqqani network in support of the US-Taliban peace agreement. In short, the CNN report fails on matters of fact and logic.
The timing of the CNN report provides the greatest insight as to why such a poorly sourced and thinly argued claim would be made against Iran at this time, coming as it does on the heels of the US losing a major vote in the UN Security Council concerning the lifting of an arms embargo against Iran.
This embarrassing defeat, in which the US was only able to garner a single additional vote in support of its resolution, has set the stage for an even greater confrontation at the UN over so-called “snap-back” sanctions the US seeks to impose on Iran.
The Iran-Haqqani bounty allegation was leaked by persons in the US intelligence community who have no qualms about injecting manufactured and/or misleading intelligence into the American news cycle at a critically sensitive time, with less than 90 days remaining until the 2020 US presidential election. Instead of seeking to embarrass President Trump, this leak is designed to bolster the Trump administration’s argument that Iran is a threat worthy of sustaining a major confrontation at the Security Council which could threaten the legitimacy and viability of that organization.
In the end, the motives behind an intelligence leak are irrelevant. The US intelligence community, through its repeated use of well-timed leaks to influence policy by deceiving the American public about the truth, has shown itself to be a highly politicized institution that operates at the whim of nameless partisan operatives, and not in the best interests of the United States.
That it can still ask for and receive a budget in excess of $80 billion per year is a harsh indictment of just how decrepit the US system of government has become, where a blind eye continues to be turned when it comes to the blatant abuse of intelligence for purposes other than what it was intended for.
Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter
Afghanistan’s grand assembly approves freeing of 400 Taliban prisoners
Press TV – August 9, 2020
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga, or grand assembly of elders, has approved the release of 400 imprisoned Taliban militants who had been involved in serious crimes in Afghanistan, removing the final obstacle to negotiations between the Afghan government and the militants.
After three days of deliberation, the elders approved the release of the 400 militant prisoners on Sunday.
Former president Hamid Karzai told the convention, “This is a very happy day. Based on the information I have, the intra-Afghan talks would begin within two to three days after the release of the 400 Taliban prisoners.”
Chief negotiator Abdullah Abdullah, who is the head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), said, “The decision of the Loya Jirga has removed the last excuse and obstacles on the way to peace talks. We are on the verge of peace talks.”
Kabul and the Afghan Taliban have been involved in a prisoner exchange for a couple of months. The prisoner swap was an Afghan government obligation under a deal between the United States and the Taliban that was struck in February. Kabul was excluded from the talks, and the obligation was imposed on it.
The exchange has been regarded as a first step toward broader talks between the government and the Taliban. The prospect of the talks was dimmed after Kabul refused to free hundreds of inmates involved in serious crimes. Last month, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said he had “no authority” under the country’s constitution to release the remaining inmates because of their involvement in serious crimes. Ghani said the decision on the release of those militants had to be made by the Loya Jirga.
Under the deal with the Taliban, the US will start a phased withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan. US Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced on Saturday that a sizable number of US troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan before the end of November.
The United States invaded Afghanistan and toppled a Taliban regime in 2001 under the pretext of fighting terrorism following the September 11 attacks.
Official data shows that bombings and other assaults by the Taliban have surged 70 percent since the militant group signed the deal with the United States.
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A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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