Skip to content

Afghanistan

The ‘War On Terror’ Scam Continues

August 27, 2021 Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin's Newsletter. , , ,
ISIS has reportedly claimed credit for an explosion near Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. As of this writing there are around 90 dead including 13 US military personnel, though to read western mainstream media reports you'd think only US troops died and not scores of Afghans as well. This was the deadliest attack in a decade on US troops in Afghanistan, which is odd to think about considering how many people the US military has killed during that time; just between January and July of this year the war killed 1,659 civilians. The way the US war machine has shifted to relying more on highly profitable missiles and bombs and unmanned aircraft to avoid the bad PR of flag-draped bodies flying home on jets is making the murder of foreigners a safer profession than working at a convenience store.

Further US Hostility Against The Taliban

August 27, 2021 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
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.

Afghanistan, The Great Game Of Smashing Countries

August 25, 2021 John Pilger, Mintpress News. , ,
More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed. When we watch the current scenes of panic at Kabul airport, and listen to journalists and generals in distant TV studios bewailing the withdrawal of “our protection”, isn’t it time to heed the truth of the past so that all this suffering never happens again?

Sanctions Won’t Help Afghans.

August 25, 2021 Natasha Hakimi Zapata , In These Times. ,
One only has to look at ongoing U.S. sanctions on two-dozen countries to realize that they are a moral catastrophe, especially during the pandemic. From the Balkans to Zimbabwe, the United States is dealing devastating blows to nations reeling from the public health and economic impacts of a relentless Covid-19 outbreak

Afghanistan: Operation Cyclone Comes Full Circle

August 25, 2021 Gavin O'Reilly, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Since Monday, the international media has focused on one story that has managed to knock Covid from the headlines; the capture of the Afghan capital Kabul by Taliban forces and the subsequent exile of President Ashraf Ghani to the UAE, following a US-Taliban authored withdrawal agreement due to be fully implemented by the end of August when the last remaining US Forces are scheduled to leave the war-torn nation. Over the past week, emotive images of desperate Afghans clinging to departing US warplanes in a bid to escape the incoming theocratic rule of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan have filled television screens worldwide, and there has been much debate in the Western media about women’s rights under the new regime, the increase in refugees that the situation looks set to create, and the competency of the Biden administration in handling the withdrawal.

As Kabul Is Retaken, Papers Look Back In Erasure

August 23, 2021 Gregory Shupak, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. , , ,
Corporate media coverage of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the country’s US-backed government has offered audiences more mystification than illumination. The Boston Globe, LA Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. The editorial boards of these papers consistently trivialized South Asian lives, erased US responsibility for lethal violence, and made untenable assertions about Washington’s supposedly righteous motives in the war.

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

August 23, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
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.

US Scrambles To Hit Hard With ‘Soft’ Power

August 22, 2021 Robert Inkalesh, Mintpress News. , , ,
Washington — In keeping with President Joe Biden’s pledge to withdraw from America’s 20-year war in one of the poorest countries on earth, the U.S. government has yet to present any plan for future relations with Afghanistan, as it is reportedly scrambling to freeze Kabul’s wealth for fears of it falling into the hands of the Taliban. In the midst of the sudden collapse of Afghanistan’s government and the subsequent return to power of the Taliban this Sunday, the U.S. troop presence at Afghanistan’s Kabul Airport has reportedly increased to 4,500 strong, with a further increase planned to 6,000 in coming days. Having abandoned its embassy in the Afghan capital and vowing to maintain a presence only at the country’s airport, the U.S. government has severely miscalculated the pace at which the country was destined to fall into Taliban control.

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

August 22, 2021 Peter Oborne, Middle East Eye. , , ,
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. , , ,
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.

Afghanistan

August 21, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , ,
The scenes of people desperately trying to board planes in Kabul, Afghanistan, hanging from and even falling from landing gear, are reminiscent of past United States exits, most notably from Vietnam. Yet these images should not be surprising nor should they change anyone’s views about the terror that the U.S. brought to that country. The turmoil in present day Afghanistan is the end result of more than 40 years of U.S. involvement and it should not be discussed without an analysis of that history. Liberals in this country, even those who had expressed opposition to the war, now show themselves as imperialists, and in the case of Afghanistan claim concern for the treatment of women in advocating for a never ending war.

Not Everyone Wanted War In Afghanistan

August 21, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies, FPIF. , ,
America’s corporate media are ringing with recriminations over the humiliating U.S. military defeat in Afghanistan. But very little of the criticism goes to the root of the problem, which was the original decision to militarily invade and occupy Afghanistan in the first place. That decision set in motion a cycle of violence and chaos that no subsequent U.S. policy or military strategy could resolve over the next 20 years — in Afghanistan, Iraq, or any of the other countries swept up in America’s post-9/11 wars. While Americans were reeling in shock at the images of airliners crashing into buildings on September 11, 2001, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld held a meeting in an intact part of the Pentagon.

The Crimes Of The West In Afghanistan

August 21, 2021 By Fabian Scheidler, Common Dreams. , , ,
The headless flight of NATO troops from Afghanistan and the havoc they leave behind are only the last chapter in a devastating story that began in October 2001. At that time, the US government, supported by allies including the German administration, announced that the terror attacks of September 11 should be answered by a war in Afghanistan. None of the assassins were Afghan. And the Taliban government at the time even offered the US to extradite Osama bin Laden—an offer the US did not even respond to. Virtually no word was said about the country of origin of 15 of the 19 terrorists—Saudi Arabia. On the contrary: members of the Bin Laden family were flown out of the USA in a night-and-fog operation so that they could not be interrogated.

Create Two, Three, Many Saigons

August 20, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: institute for Social Research. , , ,
On Sunday, 15 August, Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani fled his country for Uzbekistan. He left behind a capital city, Kabul, which had already fallen into the hands of the advancing Taliban forces. Former President Hamid Karzai announced that he had formed a coordination council with Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the National Reconciliation Committee, and jihadi leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Karzai called on the Taliban to be prudent as they entered Kabul’s presidential palace and took charge of the state. Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, and Hekmatyar have asked for the formation of a national government. This will suit the Taliban, since it would allow them to claim to be an Afghan government rather than a Taliban government.

The Collapse Of Afghanistan And American Illusions

August 20, 2021 Danny Sjursen, LA Progressive. , , ,
...the crucial question that’s on everyone’s minds seems to be: how did this happen? How did the ostensibly – and somewhat self-styled – most powerful military in history fail against what, when interviewed in Kandahar in 2011, I only slightly satirically called “farm-boys with guns?” Of course, the question itself is partially problematic – denying the Taliban and average Afghans agency, and arrogantly placing America at the center of a Central Asian conflict. This should be a time for self-reflection and humility. Unfortunately, exceptionalist hegemons are hardly known for their humbleness, and I’m hardly hopeful we’ll see much of that virtue, or any accountability, in the coming days, weeks, months, or years. I fear Americans, and especially their elite leaders, aren’t exactly the lesson-learning sorts.
«12345678910»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.