The Taliban Comes Home to Roost; U.S. Militarist Foreign Policy a Disaster

[Likkmee]

What do you expect when it's the politicians and not the Generals in charge of these 'wars'?

"Generals" jobs are to make sure a quarter will bounce off the bed the meatheads sleep in and their lil shoezies are impeccably clean
That's where it ends. Makes for fantastic photo ops and sells the shit out of flags and flagpoles. China and Bangladesh are very happy !

https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/coe/china-is-worlds-largest-producer-of-bibles/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=pmd_7db1ab8f035c5b1aeb23f83724ca3e8d15aabe6a-1629067169-0-gqNtZGzNAg2jcnBszQhi

 

[Gabe Lackmann]

The Washington Post reports that the Taliban has entered Kabul through four gates to the city, The Afghan “President” is rumored to have fled the country, and the government has apparently collapsed. Twenty years of imperial American intervention lies in ruin.

As sad as this will be for those Afghans who threw their lot in with the American occupiers, this will hopefully be a lesson for arrogant Americans who think U.S. military prowess, and economic bribery of corrupt local pro-Western elites, can replace intelligent diplomacy and a sober foreign policy.

It should be pointed out that after the last Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan, the Kabul central government survived for THREE YEARS, while the U.S. continued aid to the jihadists. It survived even after Soviet military aid ended, and even 9 months after the Soviet Union itself collapsed.

It is impossible to overestimate how badly these FOUR decades of wholly typical U.S. stupidity and arrogance served real U.S. interests, and more especially how much they damaged the interests of all Afghan people.

In the last two decades the Afghan army and police, like the U.S. army and U.S. contractors, were mercenaries. The main difference was that the U.S. military and thousands of contractors were usually just rotated in and out, had American homes and families awaiting them decked out with American flags, couldn’t speak the local languages, and were paid infinitely more than Afghan rank and filers, who only wanted to feed their families. Afghan generals and politicians stole most of the money and much of it found its way into foreign bank accounts awaiting this very moment. Another even greater part of it went to bribe Taliban militants not to attack regional government forces.

The MIC arms manufacturers and contractors made great profits supplying the Green Zone fortress state, while turning most of Afghanistan into a testing ground for new U.S. ”anti-terror” weapons systems.

My last comment is that had Trump not proposed withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is unlikely the Biden Administration would have felt it had the political “cover” to finally get the hell out. U.S. ultra-partisan domestic politics, and macho “patriotism,” usually makes intelligent, sober and restrained foreign policy … all but impossible.

…

A slightly better-than-average article, still too sympathetic to past U.S. policy and the recent Afghan regime, which at least raises a few points about mistaken U.S. military-centered foreign policy:

20-year US intervention in ruins as Taliban enters Kabul – Responsible Statecraft

Beautiful, and very 'on target' synopsis.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

The Afghan army won't fight.....no longer our problem....

And the Afghan government refused to govern.

 

[Meister]

Always partisan, Meister. Never truly thoughtful. And you never talk about the big issues that I tried to go into in my OP. See my comment #18.

Tom...wake the fuck up, will you? We all are partisan, just as your sorry ass is.
Good grief.....

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Tom...wake the fuck up, will you? We all are partisan, just as your sorry ass is.
Good grief.....

It is only party-partisan pro-imperialist assholes like you who could respond to my criticism of 40 years of bipartisan U.S. policy in Afghanistan with a comment like this:

“Makes me think that Obama is the wizard behind Biden's curtain. Obama used to telegraph to the enemy when he was pulling out, also. It's the subtle things that is the give away.”

And then you have the nerve to ignore my point about Trump’s declared promise to get out this past May, which I supported.

Are you now supporting Elizabeth Cheney’s proposals?
If so, at least have the guts to say it out loud!

 

[Meister]

It is only party-partisan pro-imperialist assholes like you who could respond to my criticism of 40 years of bipartisan U.S. policy in Afghanistan with a comment like this:

And then you have the nerve to ignore my point about Trump’s declared promise to get out this past May, which I supported.

Are you now supporting Elizabeth Cheney’s proposals?
If so, at least have the guts to say it out loud!

I pretty much ignore nearly all of your drivel if you haven't noticed. I mostly make observations.
Do you believe that Trump just pull up the stakes to keep his word?
Or, do you believe he would have scaled it down making sure there was at least
some semblance of a orderly transition?
Yes, I do believe that Obama is behind that curtain, Biden is no more than a face in the WH.
Seems Biden needs help finding the WH at times, so bite me.

 

[Unkotare]

This abject failure of the Biden administration will result in untold trouble for America over the next decade.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Meister “makes observations” …
But he refuses to answer a simple question:
Do you support the “endless war” foreign policy position of ‘RINO’ neocon Liz Cheney?

P.S.
Take your time & answer any way you wish.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

“Let's back up 20 years. Saudi, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers, fled to Afghanistan. The U.S. requested that the then Taliban led government, turn over bin Laden and his followers for prosecution. Per their Islamic custom of protecting guests, they refused ….” — LuckyDuck

It is of course NOT true that Osama bin Laden and his followers suddenly “fled to Afghanistan” 20 years ago after the 9/11 attack. In fact OBL and his network were an integral part of the whole U.S.-financed “nation-destroying” campaign in Afghanistan from its very beginning. That campaign finally succeeded in installing a Mujahideen warlord jihadist regime in Kabul which was actually worse than the later Talaban regime:

“In 1979, bin Laden went to Pakistan … and used money … from his own construction company to help the Mujahideen resistance in the Soviet–Afghan War…. From 1979 to 1992, the United States (as part of CIA activities in Afghanistan, specifically Operation Cyclone) … provided … financial aid and weapons to tens of thousands of mujahideen through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)…. Bin Laden met and built relations with Hamid Gul, who was a three-star general in the Pakistani army and head of the ISI agency. Although the United States provided the money and weapons, the training of militant groups was entirely done by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI. According to some CIA officers, beginning in early 1980, bin Laden acted as a liaison between the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) and Afghan warlords, but no evidence of contact between the CIA and Bin Laden exists in the CIA archives. [hardly surprising!] … Steve Coll states that although bin Laden may not have been a formal, salaried GIP agent, "it seems clear that bin Laden did have a substantial relationship with Saudi intelligence." Bin Laden's first trainer was U.S. Special Forces commando Ali Mohamed.

“By 1984, bin Laden … funneled money, arms, and fighters from around the Arab world into Afghanistan.… Bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, paid for paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihadi fighters. Bin Laden established camps inside … Pakistan and trained volunteers from across the Muslim world to fight against the Soviet-backed regime, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Between 1986 and 1987, bin Laden set up a base in eastern Afghanistan … It was during this time that he became idolised by many Arabs.”

 

[LuckyDuck]

More than 90% of the Afghan rural population long preferred “Taliban” or local leadership rule to rule by the foreign-supported corrupt central government. Should this 90% of the country be “completely destroyed”?

Once the Taliban protected the al Qaeda terrorists and fought our troops, they became the enemy. You destroy them, whether the percentage is, 5%, 10%, 50%, or 90%.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Once the Taliban protected the al Qaeda terrorists and fought our troops, they became the enemy. You destroy them, whether the percentage is, 5%, 10%, 50%, or 90%.

There is a strong whiff of genocide in your comment above. There was never a single act of terror committed by the Talaban in the U.S.A.

The Saudi and Arab terror network of Osama Bin Laden was supported by the U.S and set up by our friends in the Pakistani security services. BinLaden & Pakistan & the Arab fundamentalists in Afghanistan were ALL on “our side” — before the Talaban were even born.

The rural-based Talaban who swept away the Mujaheddin warlord jihadists and drug dealers alienated many non-Pashtun tribal groups and educated city dwellers, and of course the West. But they did not support, and indeed condemned, the 9/11 attack.

The Talaban “government” fled from Kabul when the “Northern (tribal) Alliance” got U.S. air and Special Forces (and Russian) support, but American arrogance and stupidity was obvious even from the start. We made a “non-negotiable” demand that the Talaban violate their own “hospitality” traditions, which they had extended to a friend whom had helped them and us in the past. The U.S. demanded they immediately and unconditionally turn over Bin Laden without providing any evidence of his guilt whatever. See the Oct. 2001 Guardian article below.

***

Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over

President George Bush rejected as "non-negotiable" an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn [bin Laden] over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over." He added, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty". In Jalalabad, deputy prime minister Haji Abdul Kabir - the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime - told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but added: "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country".

Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over

 

[surada]

Let's back up 20 years. Saudi, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers, fled to Afghanistan. The U.S. requested that the then Taliban led government, turn over bin Laden and his followers for prosecution. Per their Islamic custom of protecting guests, they refused and challenged the U.S. to try and take them. The U.S. accepted the challenge. The anti-Taliban Afghanis requested assistance in fighting the Taliban while the U.S. was focusing on weeding out the al Qaeda element. Because of our presence we were forced to go up against the Taliban while continuing our search and destroy efforts against al Qaeda and their supporters.
The intention there was never to "nation build,' but as anti-Taliban Afghanis continued to request our support militarily, our government stayed and supported them militarily and did some positive things in their communities (water, infrastructure, et cetera). Once we killed bin Laden (in Pakistan of all places) and many of his followers, we should have made it clear to the Afghanis that we had accomplished our original mission and just left, but politicians as always butt in to military affairs.
What is needed in the future is, if we have to go to war, let the military do its job WITHOUT CIVILIAN POLITICIAN INTERFERENCE! Because of protests and politicians, the military has been hampered since the Korean conflict. Just tell the Generals to do their damn job and completely destroy the enemy. Whenever we allow the military to be dictated to by the civilians, we continue end in stalemates or withdrawals and only sacrificed precious men and women's lives for nothing.

The Taliban offered to turn OBL over three times. The first time was in 1998 after the bombing of the USS Cole.

OBL went to Afghanistan in 1979 to build roads.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Here is a fine short article that makes key points about Afghanistan that the U.S. media always ignores. It is called “The Great Game of Smashing Nations.”

John Pilger: The Great Game of Smashing Nations

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Responds to the Taliban Takeover (excerpted):

[Question]: For years RAWA spoke out against the U.S. occupation and now that it has ended, the Taliban are back. Could President Biden have withdrawn U.S. forces in a manner that would have left Afghanistan in a safer situation than currently? Could he have done more to ensure the Taliban were not so quickly able to take over?

[RAWA]: In the past 20 years, one of our demands was an end to the US/NATO occupation and even better if they take their Islamic fundamentalists and technocrats with them and let our people decide their own fate. This occupation only resulted in bloodshed, destruction and chaos. They turned our country into the most corrupt, insecure, drug-mafia and dangerous place especially for women.

From the very beginning we could predict such an outcome. On the first days of the US occupation of Afghanistan, RAWA declared on October 11, 2001:

“The continuation of US attacks and the increase in the number of innocent civilian victims not only gives an excuse to the Taliban, but also will cause the empowerment of the fundamentalist forces in the region and even in the world.”

The main reason we were against this occupation was their backing of terrorism under the nice banner of “war on terror”. From the very first days when the Northern Alliance looters and killers were installed back into power in 2002 to the last so-called peace talks, deals and agreements in Doha and release of 5000 terrorists from prisons in 2020/21, it was very obvious that even the withdrawal won’t have a good end.

The Pentagon proves that none of the theory invasion or meddling ended up in safe condition. All imperialist powers invade countries for their own strategic, political and financial interests but through lies and the powerful corporate media try to hide their real motive and agenda.

It is a joke to say values like “women’s rights”, “democracy”, “nation-building” etc. were part of the US/NATO aims in Afghanistan! US was in Afghanistan to turn region into instability and terrorism to encircling the rival powers especially China and Russia and undermining their economies via regional wars. But of course the US government did not want such a disastrous, disgraceful and embarrassing exit that left behind such a commotion that they were forced to send troops again in 48 hours to control the airport and safely evacuate its diplomats and staff.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolut ... fghanistan

My comment:
The horrors awaiting Western-educated women in Afghanistan under the “new” stronger-than-ever Taliban may be comparable to those faced by the Soviet-educated women in Afghanistan when the (U.S. armed and bankrolled) Mujaheddin fundamentalists took power in Kabul two or three years after the Red Army fully left the country. That U.S. intervention brought the bloody civil war right into the capital and lead to the Taliban takeover. The RAWA group was opposed to both the Red Army and NATO interventions, and works in both Afghanistan and Pakistan today.

April 28, 1998: Demonstration of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan in Peshawar, Pakistan, “to condemn the sixth anniversary of swarming of fundamentalists into Kabul.” (RAWA, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

 

[Sunni Man]

The Taliban had offered to arrest Osama bin Laden and deport him to a neutral 3rd party western country to stand trial.
Pres. Bush told the Taliban that was unacceptable and invaded Afghanistan looking for him. ....

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I think we need to talk about “boundaries.” The problem with American “Militarist Foreign Policy,” as expressed especially in Afghanistan, but really all over the world, is that the U.S. recognizes NO BOUNDARIES in its “War on Terror,” except where other great powers have the military might to protect their own sovereign state frontiers. Our “War on Terror,” like our supposedly benign “nation building,” are complete frauds — propaganda buzzwords to mislead our divided, ignorant and gullible public. Listen carefully to our politicians screaming for vengeance because our soldiers are attacked … in Afghanistan!

When Germany and Japan sent armies abroad and physically attacked the U.S. and our allies, that was one thing. But today who is sending armies outside their borders and halfway around the world but us? It is not because of terrorism. It is not because we want to spend a trillion dollars to help the poor Afghan people! Wall Street finance capitalIsm and its “Security State” apparatus have their own interests. Those interests operate with their own logic and inertia. They don’t care who is hurt.

Just as the inertia and arrogance of power led mercantile and capitalist nations to engage in colonial adventures in the past, now it leads world dominant U.S. finance capitalism to fall into thoroughly avoidable mistakes like this one in Afghanistan. If we are not very careful, we are likely to stumble into much more dangerous “proxy wars” as our “Militarist Foreign Policy” leads us into a “Thucidites Trap” with China. Our debacle in Afghanistan isn’t exactly like the French one at Dienbienphu, or our previous one in Vietnam. There was not a single great power supporting the Taliban, and the Taliban ideology surely isn’t “Marxist” or even “nationalist.” In Afghanistan we essentially defeated ourselves.

Yet the talking heads on MSNBC still can’t effectively counter even the pathetic arguments of warmongers and neo-cons like John Bolton [!], whom they invite on to explain what went wrong in Afghanistan … because they have been so busy brainwashing the American people and themselves with lies about “terror” and our own “good intentions.” They let the warmongers blubber on about all that, and also listen in rapt attention as they murmur about … “strategic interests.”

The U.S. flag should fly proudly over U.S. post offices and schools, our state houses and Congress. It should not be carried around the world stirring up trouble, taking sides in civil wars, destroying nations. We cannot even safeguard our own democratic republic, help our own poor, stop terror and crime on our own streets. We need to do better “nation building” … here.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Right. Now the Afghan “people” have all the weapons our 2nd Amendment fanatics could possibly dream of. Not only that. It is rural, agrarian farmer-peasants who have most of them! What would Thomas Jefferson and George Washington think about all this? Something tells me they would turn over in their graves … and would have opposed sending a “Professional Army” and mercenary contractors to Afghanistan in the first place!

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

As the final giant transport planes take off carrying the last Americans, and lucky Afghani emigres, Kabul plunges back into bankruptcy, mass misery, and feudal religious darkness.

The petty partisan arguments about the embarrassing “exit” will soon be forgotten, like Hurricane Ida. But now the real Establishment is worried, and even their liberal mass media are concerned that “wrong lessons” might be learned. They are wringing their hands. Some like MSNBC shamelessly now invite John Bolton on to “explain what went wrong.” All the old neo-con and neo-liberal imperialists are coming out of their hiding places.

All along and for years most were dead set against full military withdrawal, and some are now mumbling louder about “international terrorism” and even “strategic interests.” Bolton, McConnell, Cheney, many within military leadership and the MIC are all talking nonsense about how we had few casualties over recent years and so our military presence and counterinsurgency (COIN) presence there was sustainable indefinitely.

In fact, if history is any guide, in the future right-wing talking heads will segue into making “Who Lost Afghanistan?” charges. The only difficulty will be that Trump signed the basic drawdown and exit agreements on this matter.

The real issues of our overseas policy mistakes are never discussed and no lessons are ever learned precisely because so many Americans are fixated on treating everything as a party-partisan political issue.

As for an “exit strategy” — which was necessary — both parties’ political leaders and our military were just as clueless here as they were all along about everything else. They did a far worse job than did the Politburo’s Red Army. We should have followed Gorbachev’s example and concentrated the Afghan army in a hard ring around Kabul and the Northern Alliance heartland. We should also have insisted on radical measures like arming civilian militias to defend Kabul. Instead it was “high tech” unsustainable aerial warfare and “business as usual” over the last several years.

The almost overnight collapse of the army and unresisted Taliban entry into Kabul proved the utter bankruptcy of our whole long term policy there, our “training” methods, and also our failure to have a real “exit strategy” that could give some chance for a negotiated settlement and a less catastrophic future for women and our supporters remaining in Afghanistan. Remember we also still have control of Afghan finances. Given the total Afghan army collapse, however, our troops did a great job on the last minute emergency evacuation. The rest is just ignorant b.s. nitpicking.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The Taliban will Escape Pariah Status by Posing as the Enemy of ISIS.

“The Taliban … has been fighting Islamic State Khorasan, the regional franchise of Isis, since 2015…. By one account, 28 Taliban fighters were killed by the blast [at the airport]. Rebranded as an anti-Isis force, the Taliban will find it much easier to win legitimacy, international recognition and acquire desperately needed economic aid.

“Isis itself has denounced the Taliban as collaborators with the US, saying that only an understanding between the two can explain the speed of the Taliban advance and of the Kabul government’s collapse….

“The situation today differs from 20 years ago. Then, the Taliban needed an alliance with al-Qaeda, which provided it with money and fanatical fighters…. Today, the Taliban needs no such assistance and … will present itself as an enthusiastic new recruit to “the war on terror” whose other failings should be ignored. This is a well-worn path for authoritarian states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia whose abuses are routinely ignored or downplayed in the west.”

***

My comment:
One of the best indicators that the fundamentalist jihadi Taliban are making a serious play for Western aid and an unlikely alliance with the U.S. will be whether it echoes our propaganda about supposed “genocide” against Uighur Chinese citizens in XinJiang. As I’ve said previously, I do not expect this … but it is certainly possible.