by Tony Cartalucci
Troops will never leave Afghanistan until regional hegemony and its full integration into the "international system" is complete.
When they say "Long War," they mean it. Imperialism 2.0.
Bangkok, Thailand April 22, 2011 - With NATO providing Al Qaeda air cover in Libya as they commit an array of egregious war crimes in their bid to seize the country, the last shred of legitimacy for America's official narrative regarding their war on the Afghan-Pakistani border disappears before our eyes. However, a more rational explanation for the seemingly irrational campaign of frequent General Atomic* Predator drone attacks on Pakistani soil is not only on the table, but has been put there by the global corporate-financier oligarchs themselves.
To understand US-Pakistan relations within the context of the entirely fake "War on Terror" is impossible. Al Qaeda is merely the increasingly tenuous public excuse to justify continued wanton murder within Pakistan as well as occupations and interventions around the globe. In a broader geopolitical context, these constant and seemingly random attacks in western Pakistan serve a more diabolical purpose. With each attack on "suspected militants," the all inclusive term used to describe CIA targets, the authority and stability of Pakistan's establishment is undermined and whittled away. With many of the attacks claiming the lives of civilians, outrage and unrest is purposefully being fanned and spread. The recipients of this outrage and unrest is a national government seemingly bent to the will of the United States as it callously murders Pakistanis.
In particular, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is being intentionally weakened, undermined, and isolated from the whole of Pakistan. The threat of continued CIA operations are usually standing vis-a-vis concessions Pakistan is expected to make. After a recent show of defiance by Pakistan calling on the US to halt all drone operations within its borders, the CIA responded with multiple attacks, the latest of which killed at least 22, including woman and possibly children, seemingly just to spite and incense this reassertion of national sovereignty. The necessary concession expected of Pakistan this time around is their commitment to a military campaign against the Haqqani network, "allegedly based in North Waziristan."
According to the International Herald Tribune article, "End to US drone hits if military launches North Waziristan operation," which even at face value smacks of extortion, "Pakistan’s security establishment has long been accused of having links with the Afghan Taliban particularly the influential Haqqani network." Considering that further strikes will put political pressure on the Pakistani government to concede, the US is driving a wedge between them and the ISI which is undoubtedly the "security establishment" the Tribune is referring to. Instability alone benefits the United States in the short-term to extort a myriad of concessions fulfilling a range of ambitions. But perhaps the most overarching theme is to sever permanently yet another link in China's "String of Pearls."
The "String of Pearls" doctrine encapsulated in a 2006 Strategic Studies Institute report, aims at co-opting, destabilizing and otherwise neutralizing nation states cooperating with China and enabling it to project power and influence along its long and vulnerable oil link to the Middle East. Starting in Africa, throughout the Middle East, into Central Asia and terminating in Southeast Asia, the United States has been conducting a widespread campaign of doing just this.
Pakistan in particular has jointly built a new port with China in the coastal city of Gwadar in the southern province of Balochistan. This port serves as a potential terminal for a north-south transit corridor to transport oil and goods directly into Chinese territory via the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. It also serves the potential to host a Chinese naval presence. The US bid to interfere internally to disrupt this is hardly a conspiracy theory. Globalist scribe Selig Harrison of the Soros funded Center for International Policy has published two pieces regarding the overarching importance of Pakistan in a broader geopolitical context and "suggestions" on how it can be solved.
Harrison's February 2011 piece, "Free Baluchistan," in name alone indicates yet another "freedom movement" contrived and fueled to give a favorable outcome to his corporate-financier patrons. He explicitly calls to "aid the 6 million Baluch insurgents fighting for independence from Pakistan in the face of growing ISI repression." He continues by explaining the various merits of such meddling by stating, "Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests in addition to the immediate goal of countering Islamist forces."
The Baluchi ethnic group is in pink. Globalists would like to carveout a "Free Baluchistan" in order to disrupt Chinese-Pakistani
relations. Baluchi rebels are already being armed and supported
by the US in terrorist operations against Iran.
Harrison would follow up his frank call to carve up Pakistan by addressing the issue of Chinese-Pakistani relations in a March 2011 piece unimaginatively titled, "The Chinese Cozy Up to the Pakistanis." He begins by stating, "China’s expanding reach is a natural and acceptable accompaniment of its growing power—but only up to a point. " He then reiterates his call for extraterritorial meddling in Pakistan by saying, "to counter what China is doing in Pakistan, the United States should play hardball by supporting the movement for an independent Baluchistan along the Arabian Sea and working with Baluch insurgents to oust the Chinese from their budding naval base at Gwadar. Beijing wants its inroads into Gilgit and Baltistan to be the first step on its way to an Arabian Sea outlet at Gwadar."
Considering that Baluchi rebels are already being funded and armed to wage war inside of Iran, it is more than likely similar aid is being rendered to them to confront the ISI and Pakistan's government. This three-pronged attack on Iranian, Pakistani, and Chinese sovereignty in a region where 3 nuclear armed nations converge and billions call home is beyond reckless, providing us further insight into the deranged, degenerate minds behind "global governance."
Those under the delusion that US troops will ever leave Afghanistan are in for a disappointment. Barring catastrophic economic collapse or an unexpected and grievous tactical defeat on the battlefield for Western forces, troops will only be moved around, replaced, or even bolstered until regional hegemony is established. Even then, the globalist "civil society" underlay and local security forces fully integrated and subservient to global military alliances would need to be built up and reliable before a single boot leaves the region. This will take decades to complete, which is exactly why we are told the US and UK will be in Afghanistan literally for "decades."
* General Atomic also makes the TRIGA research reactors found in many universities throughout America and around the world, including UT at Austin, Penn State, and even next to Kasetsart University in Thailand.
