Afghanistan War

Preventing A Dystopian Future: New Campaign To Ban Killer And Surveillance Drones

August 30, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Afghanistan War, Drones, Occupation, Surveillance

Drones are being used as weapons of terror and oppression throughout the world. Not only do they make it possible for the United States to colonize and occupy other countries, but police departments in the US have access to surveillance and weaponized drones to target civilians. As the technology evolves, drones have the potential to lead to greater wars, including a war between major powers. To prevent this dystopian future, anti-drone activists are organizing an international campaign to ban drones. Clearing the FOG speaks with Nick Mottern, one of the founders of the Ban Killer Drones campaign, about the impact of drones on communities and the work to end them.

Biden Vows New Strikes In Retaliation

August 29, 2021 Julia Conley, Commondreams. Educate! Afghanistan War, Drones, Joe Biden, Wars and Militarism

Even as he planned to withdraw all remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by August 31, President Joe Biden said Saturday that the drone strike that was launched Friday night in retaliation for an attack claimed by ISIS-K "was not the last." "We will continue to hunt down any person involved in that heinous attack and make them pay," the president said in a statement Saturday afternoon. "Whenever anyone seeks to harm the United States or attack our troops, we will respond. That will never be in doubt." The Pentagon said the drone strike killed two "planners and facilitators" of the explosion outside Kabul's airport, but according to The Guardian, in addition to targets related to the ISIS affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an elder in Jalalabad reported that three civilians were killed and four were wounded in the U.S. strike.

Decline And Fall Of The US Empire

August 27, 2021 Mnar Adley, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Afghanistan War, Middle East, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

After 20 years of war and occupation that have caused the deaths of almost a quarter of a million people and displaced 5.9 million more, the United States appears to have finally (tacitly) admitted defeat in Afghanistan, pulling its forces and representatives out of the country. The U.S.-installed government fell within days, with President Ashraf Ghani escaping to the United Arab Emirates, reportedly with $169 million in cash stuffed in his suitcases. Ghani’s departure is illustrative of the extraordinary grift of the entire operation. Overall, the U.S. spent well over $2 trillion on the Afghanistan War, making weapons contractors and construction agencies in the Washington, D.C. suburbs extremely wealthy.

Further US Hostility Against The Taliban

August 27, 2021 Moon of Alabama. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Terrorism, Wars and Militarism

The chaotic evacuation of international 'assets' and economic migrants from Kabul airport just got more complicate. An hour ago a suicide bomber blew himself up amidst a crowd which was waiting to get access to the airport. Additionally gunfire was heard. At least 13 people got killed. There are pictures and video of dozens of killed and wounded Afghans. Hours ago the U.S. and UK had warned of an imminent ISIS attack on the airport and had asked their citizens to stay away from the airport. The evacuation flights for civilians were supposed to end today. That was to leave time for the several thousand military on the ground to wrap up their mission before the August 31 end date. The Taliban have insisted on that final date. Whoever has sent in the suicide bomber wanted to interrupt that process. Your guess who that was is as good as mine.

The Peace Movement Must Press For Diplomacy, Not More War, In Afghanistan

August 23, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Diplomacy, US military

Col. Ann Wright was in Afghanistan to open the US Embassy in 2001. She recounts how the recommendation then was to get the US military out as quickly as possible. Instead, the Pentagon spent 20 years lying to the public and causing great suffering to the Afghan people. Wright exposes the truth about why the US stayed in for so long and explains the politics of the country. She has started a campaign to push for maintaining diplomatic relations with the new Taliban government and is calling for the CIA to cease involvement with local militias that could evolve into a civil war. Despite withdrawing the military, the US will continue to cause damage to Afghanistan if it doesn't change course. That is unlikely to happen though unless the peace movement takes action to demand diplomacy, not war.

‘Paul Wolfowitz’ Tells Newsmax The Afghanistan War Wasted Two Trillion Dollars

August 22, 2021 The Yes Men. Resist! Afghanistan War, Media, Newsmax, Yes Men

NewsmaxTV today allowed a fake Paul Wolfowitz to spend 11 minutes telling its hundreds of thousands of viewers that the $2.1T war in Afghanistan, begun by his administration in 2001, was a complete waste of money. “The next time we have two trillion dollars lying around, let’s spend it on something useful like health care or education,” said “Wolfowitz” to Tom Basile, live on the air. Here below is a partial transcript of the interview. For more on the interview and its fallout, visit www.theyesmen.org/newsmax. Tom, there's been a lot of focus on how Biden ended this war in Afghanistan, and on what we have to do now — but very little about the FACT that Biden did end this war. Now we do have to rescue our allies. Every single Afghan who needs to get out of there should be able to do so. But Tom, what our piece in the Wall Street Journal is really about is that a sitting president, in the office of president, unnecessarily ended a war — for no reason at all. Because let's be honest, Tom — there just aren't a lot of things that ordinary Americans can be proud of these days.

US Humiliation In Afghanistan Could Be A Turning Point In World History

August 22, 2021 Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

It's just over three decades since the Soviet Union was driven out of Afghanistan in a moment of epic national humiliation. Thirty-two years on and this week the United States has suffered the identical fate. In each case the same story: a global superpower defeated by a peasant army from one of the poorest countries in the world. This is a world historical moment. It raises two momentous questions. The first concerns Afghanistan itself. Will the nation subside into civil war, as happened after the collapse of Soviet rule? The second concerns the United States. Will victory for the Taliban mark the end for United States global power? There are reasons to suppose that the answer is yes, but I want first to examine the more pressing danger of a return to civil war. Collapse is possible, but there are reasons to hope not.

Keep The US Embassy In Kabul Open

August 21, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Resist! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Diplomacy, US Embassy

I was on the small U.S. Department of State team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in December 2001 and strongly feel that if the U.S. really cares for the people of Afghanistan, it should keep the U.S. Embassy open. History reveals that generally when U.S. military strategies don't work such as in Cuba (1959), Viet Nam (1975), Nicaragua (1979 and 2018), Iran (1979) and North Korea (1953), the U.S. closes embassies and wrecks havoc through brutal sanctions on the economies of the countries to have some sort of soul-soothing revenge for the politicians that put the U.S. in conflict with the countries. I’m no supporter of the Taliban, its violence, its treatment of girls and women—and boys and men who don’t agree with them.

Biden Admitted War In Afghanistan Is Becoming A Somalia-Like Drone War

August 19, 2021 Morgan Artyukhina, Sputnik News. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Drones, Wars and Militarism

The war in Afghanistan rested on the same legal basis as the rest of the US War on Terror: the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress on September 18, 2001, a week after the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda that destroyed the World Trade Center skyscrapers in New York and damaged the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing roughly 3,000 Americans. The US invasion of Afghanistan followed just weeks later, and while the Taliban government that had harbored al-Qaeda was quickly overthrown, it regrouped in the countryside and launched a new insurgency the following year, which on Sunday finally succeeded after 18 years in seizing Kabul and dispersing the US-backed Afghan government.

The Return Of The Taliban 20 Years Later

August 18, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Taliban, US Empire

In recent years, the United States has failed to accomplish any of the objectives of its wars. The US entered Afghanistan with horrendous bombing and a lawless campaign of extraordinary rendition in October 2001 with the objective of ejecting the Taliban from the country; now, 20 years later, the Taliban is back. In 2003, two years after the US unleashed a war in Afghanistan, it opened an illegal war against Iraq, which ultimately resulted in an unconditional withdrawal of the United States in 2011 after the refusal by the Iraqi parliament to allow US troops extralegal protections. As the US withdrew from Iraq, it opened a terrible war against Libya in 2011, which resulted in the creation of chaos in the region.

Afghanistan: Mirage Of The Good War

August 17, 2021 Tariq Ali, New Left Review. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Taliban, US Imperialism

Rarely has there been such an enthusiastic display of international unity as that which greeted the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Support for the war was universal in the chanceries of the West, even before its aims and parameters had been declared. nato governments rushed to assert themselves ‘all for one’. Blair jetted round the world, proselytizing the ‘doctrine of the international community’ and the opportunities for peace-keeping and nation-building in the Hindu Kush. Putin welcomed the extension of American bases along Russia’s southern borders. Every mainstream Western party endorsed the war; every media network—with bbc World and cnn in the lead—became its megaphone.

Afghanistan – Longest US War Continues To A New Stage

August 17, 2021 Roger D. Harris, Popular Resistance. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Taliban, US Empire

In recent weeks, the Taliban military rapidly advanced, taking provincial capitals in Afghanistan and then the capital city of Kabul on August 15. The US-backed former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in a helicopter packed with cash, the US embassy took down the stars-and-stripes, and Western governments evacuated personnel. In the leadup to the debacle, the US bombed a country, which has minimal air defenses, in a war that has cost at least 171,000 to 174,000 lives. Along with Qatar-based long-range B-52 Stratofortress strategic bombers and AC-130 Spectre gunships, MQ-9 Reaper drones were deployed. While claiming it would end the war, the US had intended to continue to bomb Afghanistan at will and to keep private military contractors (i.e., mercenaries) there, along with some uniformed US and allied NATO troops such as those from Turkey.

Afghanistan And The US Imperial Project

August 17, 2021 Jack Rasmus. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Pentagon Budget, US Empire

On August 16, 2021 President Biden addressed the nation to explain why the US military is pulling out of Afghanistan. To a lesser extent, he also tried to explain why the Afghan government and its 300,000 military forces imploded over the past weekend. With the Afghan State’s quick disappearing act, in a puff of smoke up went as well the more than $1 trillion spent by the US in Afghanistan since 2001. Biden glossed over the real answer to the first point why the US is now pulling out. The second he never really answered. The real answer to the first point is simple: the USA as global hegemon can no longer afford the financial cost of remaining in that country, so it is pulling out.

The Only Truth About Afghanistan War Is That It Was All Based On Lies

August 17, 2021 Scott Ritter, RT. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Lies, Wars and Militarism

The stunning victory of the Taliban over the US-backed Afghan government raises more questions than it answers as to how this happened. In the search for answers, however, don’t ask the generals who fought the war – they all lied. Let me begin with full disclosure – I have never set foot in Afghanistan. I have zero skin equity in this current debacle. I have lost very close friends to the conflict that tore that country apart these past 20 years, and I do mourn their loss. What I lack in on-the-ground warfighting resume entries, however, is somewhat compensated by a more intellectually based approach toward the conflict in Afghanistan. As a historian, I have studied the tribes of Afghanistan, especially their penchant for conflict against ruling authority which deviates from what they expect from their leaders.

Opening And Closing US Embassies-From Sierra Leone To Afghanistan

August 16, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, US Embassy, US military

While the people of Afghanistan are in a state of fear of the Taliban who now control Afghanistan, its capital, major cities and countryside after the U.S. and NATO occupation of twenty years, please pardon my personal observances of some of my experiences during sixteen years in the U.S. diplomatic corps and opening and closing U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan and the effects on the civilian populations of the countries involved. In December 2001, I was a part of a very small team from the U.S. Department of State that was sent to Kabul, Afghanistan to reopen the U.S. Embassy. The Embassy had been closed for 12 years following the Soviet exodus from Afghanistan and the subsequent civil war between the warlord militias that fought to gain land and influence.

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