Afghanistan

Fixing An American Mess: China, Iran, Pakistan Link Up To Secure Afghanistan

June 15, 2023 F.M. Shakil, The Cradle. Educate! Afghanistan, China, Iran, Pakistan, US Imperialism

Last week, Beijing hosted the first-ever tripartite security dialogue between Iran, Pakistan, and China. The gathering took place against the backdrop of recent border skirmishes between Iran and Afghanistan, and the Taliban government’s reluctance to crack down on militant groups operating within its borders. While Pakistani officials insist that the dialogue is intended to address local security issues and not act as an “an Afghan affairs watchdog” to fill the void left by the 2021 US troop withdrawal, geopolitical analysts say the talks will shape a new regional security and trade paradigm involving China, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Dissecting The Afghan Military’s Total Collapse

March 28, 2023 Kit Klarenberg, Mintpress News. Educate! Afghanistan, Corruption, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

In February, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published an extensive investigation into the spectacular collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’ (ANDSF), which the U.S. spent two decades and $90 billion building. In common with previous SIGAR reports, it offers a remarkably uncompromising, no-punches-pulled assessment, exposing corruption, incompetence, lies, and delusion every step of the way. At the report’s core is a highly detailed timeline of the ANDSF’s – and, therefore, the Afghan government’s – disintegration. That SIGAR was able to construct such a painstaking obituary is nothing short of miraculous, for the Special Inspector General was stonewalled and obstructed at every turn by the agencies it is officially charged with scrutinizing.

What We Know About US-Backed Zero Units In Afghanistan

January 13, 2023 Lynzy Billing, Propublica. Educate! Afghanistan, CIA, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

In 2019, reporter Lynzy Billing returned to Afghanistan to research the murders of her mother and sister nearly 30 years earlier. Instead, in the country’s remote reaches, she stumbled upon the CIA-backed Zero Units, who conducted night raids — quick, brutal operations designed to have resounding psychological impacts while ostensibly removing high-priority enemy targets. So, Billing attempted to catalog the scale of civilian deaths left behind by just one of four Zero Units, known as the 02, over a four year period. The resulting report represents an effort no one else has done or will ever be able to do again. With a forensic pathologist, Billing drove hundreds of miles across some of the country’s most volatile areas — visiting the sites of more than 30 raids, interviewing witnesses, survivors, family members, doctors and village elders.

Peace Activists Take On The Pentagon’s Corporate ‘Merchants Of Death’

January 8, 2023 Kathy Kelly, Truthout. Resist! Afghanistan, Anti-war Movement, International Law, Wars and Militarism

Days after a U.S. warplane bombed a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing forty-two people, twenty-four of them patients, the international president of MSF, Dr. Joanne Liu walked through the wreckage and prepared to deliver condolences to family members of those who had been killed. A brief video, taped in October, 2015, captures her nearly unutterable sadness as she speaks about a family who, the day before the bombing, had been prepared to bring their daughter home. Doctors had helped the young girl recover, but because war was raging outside the hospital, administrators recommended that the family come the next day. “She’s safer here,” they said.

As Afghans Suffer, US Stalls On Plan To Return Central Bank Funds

December 20, 2022 Sarah Lazare, In These Times. Educate! Afghanistan, Taliban, US Imperialism, US Sanctions

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and, in response, Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States froze the Afghan central bank’s roughly $9 billion in foreign assets — $7 billion of which was under control of the United States. Without access to these funds — alongside a lattice of sanctions, a decline in humanitarian aid and harsh political turmoil under Taliban rule — Afghanistan has been led into an economic collapse with a dramatic uptick in poverty; 6 million Afghans are facing the immediate risk of starvation. According to calculations from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), a left-leaning think tank, U.S. sanctions on Afghanistan (including the freezing of these central bank assets) could kill more people than 20 years of U.S. war and occupation.

Biden’s Afghan Shell Game Prompts Media Shrugs And Stenography

September 22, 2022 Julie Hollar, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Media, US Sanctions

More than a year after it froze $7 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves in the wake of the Taliban’s military victory, the US has announced it will use half the money to establish a fund at a Swiss bank to help stabilize the cratering Afghan economy. President Joe Biden’s refusal over the past year to allow the Afghan central bank access to its own reserves has caused an economic crisis that has pushed most of the population into extreme poverty and malnutrition. Moreover, in February, Biden announced that he was reserving half of Afghanistan’s money for families of 9/11 victims, sparking international outrage—and yawns from TV news outlets (FAIR.org, 2/15/22). The establishment of the “Afghan Fund” is a half measure that, while almost certain to provide some much needed relief, continues both the unjust theft of half the funds and the hobbling of the country’s recovery by undermining the central bank.

US To Release Stolen Afghan Reserves, With A Catch

September 16, 2022 The Cradle. Educate! Afghanistan, Biden administration, Sanctions, US Imperialism

The US government announced on 13 September that it would release a significant portion of the $7 billion stolen Afghan central bank funds to a bank of international settlements in Basel, Switzerland. The trusteeship will help the US to oversee the disbursements of the funds in order to bypass the Taliban government in Kabul. Washington withdrew its financial support for Afghanistan, following the Taliban victory against the US-trained army in 2021. Besides harsh economic sanctions, the US government also froze the funds of Afghanistan’s Central Bank, causing a widespread humanitarian crisis in the country. However, the Taliban rejects the plan of the US to transfer the funds to a Bank of international settlements, arguing that “the [Da Afghanistan Bank] funds belong to DAB and should be returned to Afghanistan,” according to Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban.

NPR Devotes Almost Two Hours To Afghanistan Over Two Weeks

September 4, 2022 Bryce Greene, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Afghanistan, Media, NPR, US Sanctions

NPR ran several stories on Afghanistan to mark the anniversary of the August 2021 US withdrawal, even sending host Steve Inskeep to the country to produce a series of pieces. His visit happened to coincide with Biden’s claimed assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri; Inskeep says that he and his team were staying in close proximity to the Al Qaeda leader. With the anniversary and assassination providing a renewed focus on Afghanistan, NPR could have used this opportunity to call attention to the US policy of starving Afghanistan by restricting its international trade activity and seizing its central banking reserves.

The US Legacy In Afghanistan

August 25, 2022 Danny Haiphong, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Afghanistan, US Imperialism, War on Terror, Wars and Militarism

The mid-point of August is an important moment in history for Afghanistan and the world. It marks the anniversary of the Taliban’s ouster of large portions of the U.S. military from Afghanistan, putting a formal end to a two-decade occupation. U.S. forces left Afghanistan just as murderously as they came in. Joe Biden’s administration oversaw numerous war crimes during its haphazard “withdrawal” on August 15th 2021. This included a drone strike that killed ten civilians and at least seven children. The cost of the twenty-year total siege of Afghanistan is well documented. According to Brown University’s Cost of War project , at least forty-six thousand civilians were murdered by U.S. occupation forces, along with another fifty-three thousand opposition fighters. Another 60,000 were killed in Pakistan.

White House Finalizes Theft Of Afghanistan’s Foreign Reserves

August 16, 2022 The Cradle. Educate! Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Sanctions, Taliban

The government of US President Joe Biden has decided not to return Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and suspended talks with Taliban officials over the issue. “We do not see recapitalization of the Afghan central bank as a near-term option,” US Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West told the Wall Street Journal on 15 August, exactly one year after the Taliban took control of Kabul. “We do not have confidence that that institution has the safeguards and monitoring in place to manage assets responsibly,” the US official added. The decision is allegedly related to the US drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul last month. “Needless to say, the Taliban’s sheltering of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri reinforces deep concerns we have regarding diversion of funds to terrorist groups,” West told the Journal.

NPR Distorts History Of US Invasion Of Afghanistan

August 10, 2022 Bryce Greene, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. Educate! Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Media, NPR

In the first part of a series of reports on Afghanistan, NPR host Steve Inskeep (Morning Edition, 8/5/22) interviewed current Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid. In introducing Yaqoob on air, Inskeep referenced Yaqoob’s father, the former head of the Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar: “He was the leader who refused to turn over Osama bin Laden in 2001, a refusal that led to the US attack.” In the online version of the article, NPR wrote: “Omar also sheltered Osama bin Laden, and refused to turn over the Al Qaeda leader when the United States demanded him after 9/11.” This line that the Taliban “refused to turn over Osama bin Laden,” and that this “led to the US attack,” though part of the commonly accepted chronology of the war, is a gross distortion of history.

Pentagon Contractors In Afghanistan Pocketed $108 Billion Over 20 Years

August 10, 2022 Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. Educate! Afghanistan, Pentagon Budget, Wars and Militarism

Pentagon contractors operating in Afghanistan over the past two decades raked in nearly $108 billion—funds that "were distributed and spent with a significant lack of transparency," according to a report published Tuesday. "These contracts show the shadowy 'camo economy' at work in Afghanistan," said report author Heidi Peltier, director of programs for the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. "Military contracting obscures where and how taxpayer money flows, who profits, and how much is lost to waste, fraud, and abuse," she added. "It also makes it difficult to know how many people are employed, injured, and killed through military contracting."

Biden’s Assassination Of al-Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri Was Illegal

August 7, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Educate! Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, extrajudicial murder, Joe Biden

President Joe Biden’s assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan was illegal under both U.S. and international law. After the CIA drone strike killed Zawahiri on August 2, Biden declared, “People around the world no longer need to fear the vicious and determined killer.” What we should fear instead is the dangerous precedent set by Biden’s unlawful extrajudicial execution. In addition to being illegal, the killing of Zawahiri also occurred in a moment when the United Nations had already determined that people in the U.S. had little to fear from him. As a United Nations report released in July concluded, “Al Qaeda is not viewed as posing an immediate international threat from its safe haven in Afghanistan because it lacks an external operational capability and does not currently wish to cause the Taliban international difficulty or embarrassment.”

Ready, Fire, Aim: US Interests In Afghanistan, Iraq, And Syria

July 26, 2022 Chas W. Freeman, Jr., Antiwar.com. Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, US Imperialism

I have been asked to join my fellow panelists in speaking about U.S. interests in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. For some reason, our government has never been able to articulate these interests, but, judging by the fiscal priority Americans have assigned to these three countries in this century, they must be immense – almost transcendent. Since we invaded Afghanistan in 2001, we have spent more than $5 trillion and incurred liabilities for veterans’ disabilities and medical expenses of at least another trillion dollars, for a total of something over $6 trillion for military efforts alone. This is money we didn’t spend on sustaining, still less improving, our own human and physical infrastructure or current and future well-being. We borrowed almost all of it. Estimates of the costs of servicing the resulting debt run to an additional $8 trillion over the next few decades.

Earthquake Emphasizes Need For More Help For Afghanistan

June 24, 2022 Bharat Dogra, Popular Resistance. Educate! Afghanistan, Earthquake, Stolen assets, US Imperialism

An earthquake which has been called the deadliest in two decades hit Afghanistan on June 22. The latest reports indicate that nearly 1000 people have died and the death toll is likely to increase as more reports are received from remote, cut-off areas. It is feared that crucial rescue help needed in the first 24 hours or so may not reach many people buried under rubble. Rescue effort has also been hampered by heavy rain in several areas, according to initial reports. Some reports have already quoted survivors as stating that entire villages have been devastated. In assessing the situation three factors should be considered. Firstly, Afghanistan has already been in the middle of a very serious humanitarian crisis for quite some time.

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