Afghanistan: Chinese Reconstruction vs. US Sanctions

August 29, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - Beijing now has a key opportunity to demonstrate the stark contrast between its brand of foreign policy and Washington’s through its own plan to aid in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

A Global Times piece titled, “China to offer ‘genuine’ aid in Afghanistan’s economic reconstruction amid chaotic transition,” in title alone infers that the US – despite occupying Afghanistan for two decades – never genuinely sought to build up the nation.

Ironically, this is not a notion entertained only by Beijing and its allies – it has also been the theme of the US government’s own Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) quarterly reports for years.

China’s plans for Afghanistan (which include projects already completed or underway) involve highways, factories, rail lines, and other essential infrastructure projects. Over the last 20 years US SIGAR reports indicated most US “reconstruction” funding went to building up Afghanistan’s police and military or to corrupt contractors who worked on minor infrastructure projects with little or no concern about their outcome once the projects were completed, if they were even completed.

Mention of actual infrastructure projects in SIGAR reports is sparse with a focus instead placed on keeping locals dependent on USAID handouts rather than creating any sort of sustainable economic self-sufficiency.

And while on paper the contrast between Beijing’s proposals and Washington’s approach over the last 2 decades to foreign policy is clear, China now has an opportunity to fully demonstrate these differences on-the-ground.

The US Never Intended to Create a Self-Reliant Afghan Government

August 22, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - The Western media talks about the “shocking” developments in Afghanistan, as a government the US spent two decades “building up” is swept from the country in mere days.

 

The Taliban (banned in Russia) have even entered Kabul, occupying the offices and meeting rooms of former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and his administration who have already fled the country – this as the US withdrawal is not even completed.

But is it really shocking?

It shouldn’t be. The US never intended to build up a strong, self-reliant, sustainable government in Afghanistan. The US occupation of Afghanistan was never about “nation building.” It was always an exercise in American hegemony, to occupy a geostrategic location in Central Asia bordering multiple US adversaries including China, Pakistan, and Iran as well as several former Soviet states essential to Washington’s strategy of encircling Russia.

In fact, the US occupation of Afghanistan was essentially the chain-link connecting three of Washington’s most important geopolitical encirclement strategies – its encirclement of Iran, Russia, and China – with Afghanistan sharing part of its border with China’s Xinjiang region.

Afghanistan for US hegemony is such a geostrategic location that the only thing truly shocking would be the prospect of the US simply abandoning its position in Central Asia and truly withdrawing for good.

US in Afghanistan: A War By Any Other Name...

June 11, 2021 (Brian Berletic - NEO) - If the promise of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan has been met by extreme skepticism by not only the American public, but by the rest of the world, the US government has only itself to blame. 

The White House published, "Remarks by President Biden on the Way Forward in Afghanistan," on April 14, 2021 included the US President claiming: 

Over the past 20 years, the threat has become more dispersed, metastasizing around the globe: al-Shabaab in Somalia; al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; al-Nusra in Syria; ISIS attempting to create a califit [caliphate] in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia.  

President Biden would continue by claiming:

With the terror threat now in many places, keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me and to our leaders.

And finally, he would claim: 

I have concluded that it’s time to end America’s longest war.  It’s time for American troops to come home.

And yet - even after reading through the rest of President Biden's remarks - it is abundantly clear that the US is not ending its longest war. 

It is simply planning to wage it by another name - an extensive proxy conflict where the US will continue artificially propping up a client regime in Kabul, continue paying the salaries of some 300,000 Afghan troops, maintain an extensive army of private contractors numbering in the thousands, and the continued operation of at least a few American bases - including most likely an air base. 

Far from a withdrawal and just as Biden's predecessors have done - including President Barack Obama whom he served as Vice President with - the door is being left open not only for a continued, perpetual US military presence in Afghanistan, but the possibility of a troop surge at a moment's notice. 

The US maintains military units thousands of soldiers strong capable of deploying anywhere in the world within 18 hours of being notified. 

Trump: Afghanistan First

August 27, 2017 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - For those who know from whence real power flows in America's political establishment, the uninterrupted continuation of America's 16 year war in Afghanistan came as no surprise. 

For those voters who believed US President Donald Trump represented the public's desire to withdraw from multiple foreign wars and entanglements and place "America first," President Trump's announcement that not only would that not happen, but that these wars would be expanded, must have come as a surprise. 

However, perhaps it is the first in a long series of hard lessons for the American public to learn - that no matter who they vote for in Washington, it is clear agendas are decided upon and pressed from elsewhere. 

The Hill, in its article, "5 takeaways from Trump's Afghan speech," touched upon several points regarding President Trump's recent speech regarding Afghanistan, where the US currently has 8,400 troops deployed, and is poised to deploy thousands more. 

The Hill reported: 

Trump is expected to send nearly 4,000 more troops, but he neither divulged a number nor said how long additional U.S. forces would spend in the country. 

"We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for future military activities,” Trump said. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans. . . I will not say when we will attack, but attack we will.”

This is in stark contrast to his campaign promises, which The Hill noted: 

“Why are we continuing to train these Afghanis who then shoot our soldiers in the back? Afghanistan is a complete waste. Time to come home!” he wrote on Twitter in 2012.

 The Hill also claims: 

The United States has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan now. The forces are on a dual mission of training, advising and assisting Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban and conducting counterterrorism missions against groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

And indeed, that is precisely what policymakers, politicians, and military leaders have stated regarding the Afghan conflict for well over a decade and a half - spanning the presidencies of George Bush, Barack Obama, and now Trump.  

President Trump would claim that the goal was no longer withdrawal within a certain time frame, but would be dictated by conditions on the ground: 

“A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I’ve said it many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance the dates we intend to begin, or end, military options."

The "conditions" apparently require the US-backed client regime in Kabul "to take ownership of their future," despite claims that the US is not engaged in "nation building" countries in America's "own image." They are conditions that are - even at face value - contradictory and repetitive of promises made and broken by President Trump's predecessor, former President Obama.

Flirting With Further War in Pakistan 

President Trump - like Bush and Obama before him - also threatened neighboring Pakistan, accusing the nation of undermining its military presence in Afghanistan. President Trump would ultimately warn: 

“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the terrorists that we are fighting. But that will have to change, and that will change immediately,” Trump vowed. 

“It is time for Pakistan to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order and to peace.”

In reality, the US never invaded Afghanistan nor remains there today to fight terrorism. The organizations that it is allegedly fighting are not funded or directed by Afghanistan, they are funded and directed by the United States' closest and oldest allies in the Middle East - including Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 

Instead, the US is occupying Afghanistan for the same reason the British Empire invaded and occupied it multiple times - in a bid to expand hegemony over Central and South Asia.

Afghanistan conveniently borders Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and even China. A permanent US military presence in Afghanistan and control over the regime in Kabul, gives the US a springboard for direct and indirect geopolitical influence - including military operations - in all directions. Evidence indicates that exploiting this strategic foothold in this manner has already long-ago begun. 

The US has sought to pressure Iran and Pakistan for decades, with long-drawn plans regarding both nations. 

Blackwater Founder Seeks Privatization of Afghan War

August 23, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Recent murmurs across the US media have indicated increased interest in "outsourcing" the war in Afghanistan to private military contractors. National Public Radio (NPR) interviewed Erik Prince, founder of controversial military contracting firm, Blackwater, who appears to be leading lobbying efforts toward this end.

In an interview titled, "Blackwater Founder Backs Outsourcing Afghan War-Fighting to Contractors," Prince would defend his proposal for the creation of an "American viceroy" in Afghanistan, consolidating and overseeing all US operations in the country.

He would also suggest replacing US troops with private mercenaries who he claimed would operate inside Afghan units, noting that some 25,000 contractors are already present in Afghanistan. When asked if his current private military contracting company, Frontier Service Group (FSG), would be interested in bidding on contracts that might materialize out of his proposal, he responded by saying, "absolutely."

Steve Inskeep, who conducted the interview, noted that Prince's proposal for an "American viceroy" overseeing what is essentially a private army inside of Afghanistan resembled very closely Imperial Britain's colonial administration of India, an administration that carved out personal fiefdoms for influential British businessmen and lords, and emptied out India's wealth into British coffers.

Inskeep also noted that such a proposal, even before being implemented, most likely would create further resentment among Afghans.

Prince, for his part, attempted to defend the proposal, claiming that current efforts in Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers several trillions and the cost would only continue to rise. He noted that such efforts have resulted in little progress. The "progress" Prince was referring to was defeating "terrorism" and preventing the country from becoming a safe haven for organizations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Prince would claim:

There's really three ways we can go in Afghanistan. We can pull out completely, in which case, the Afghan government would likely collapse in a matter of weeks and the terrorists would run the country. And for as hard as, you know, we may be pushing in Iraq or Syria and elsewhere to destroy the Islamic State, this would give them a victory. 

Back in Reality...

Unfortunately for Prince and others attempting to propose the privatization of the Afghan war, Afghanistan already is a safe haven for terrorists. Al Qaeda had only a nascent presence there before the US invasion in 2001. The Islamic State, in its current form, did not even exist.

Both organizations flourish not because of a lack of US troops in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq, but precisely because US foreign policy has turned its attention toward each nation and has intentionally used both terrorist organizations as proxies.

In Afghanistan, while Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are used as a pretext for both the continued presence of US troops there and now the proposed deployment of a private army headed by an "American viceroy," the real battle has always been against the Taliban and in favor of an obedient client state headquartered in Kabul.

In pursuit of defeating the Taliban and the creation of a sustainable client state, the extensive use of private contractors in Afghanistan has not been part of any sort of coherent solution. Instead, private contractors are one of the most central reasons attempts at rebuilding Afghanistan have failed.

Private contractors seek to maximize profits and return home, and ultimately do not care what happens in Afghanistan. In many ways, shoddy work and continued chaos ensures continued contracts and immense profits. The estimated 2.4 trillion dollars spent on Afghanistan so far have not simply "disappeared." This immense amount of wealth has been transferred from US taxpayers to, in part, private contractors and the defense industry.

The notion of creating an "American viceroy" leading a private army in Afghanistan would give people like Erik Prince and other ambitious heads of contracting firms an entire nation to preside over and a government-subsidized budget to do it with. With the nation's immense narcotics industry and that industry's apparent ability to export worldwide under the nose of the US military with impunity, contractors notorious for systemic impropriety would have additional sources of revenue to tap and develop.

Toward Narco-Terror Fiefdoms 

Rather than stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan, contractors would ensure its perpetual slide into darkness. Instead of dealing with the Taliban, Afghans would face foreign contractors competing to carve out their own personal narco-terrorist fiefdoms. The US client regime in Kabul would have even less control over its military, with entire Afghan battalions dependent not on Kabul for support and leadership, but private contractors.

Prince and Blackwater have become synonymous with murder and mayhem for money and present yet another case study as to why dependence on mercenaries is always a dangerous liability. His proposal offers neither the American nor the Afghan people any benefits and is entertained only for the benefits it potentially offers military contractors and the immense armament industry that would provide them a steady stream of weaponry.

Last to Die in Afghanistan: US Marines Back to Helmand

May 17, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Some 300 US Marines are once again being deployed to Helmand province, Afghanistan after upward to 20,000 US Marines had spent between 2009-2014 attempting, but clearly failing to secure the province for the US-installed client regime in the nation's capital of Kabul. 

The latest deployment of US forces in Afghanistan after allegedly "ending" combat operations and the "Afghanistan War" in 2014, exposes several realities surrounding US foreign policy that directly conflict with the political narratives emanating from Washington.

The War Isn't Over 

The United States and members of its coalition involved in the invasion and now 16 plus year occupation of Afghanistan have not in fact ended the war, let alone won it. The fact that entire districts, and even provinces remain beyond the control of America's client regime, and even those that are under Kabul's control remain contested, reveals an ongoing conflict with little prospect of ending. 

Fighters resisting the US occupation and the US-backed client regime have established networks that extend beyond Afghanistan's borders far from where US forces can reach. Afghanistan's neighbors have attempted to broker practical peace deals between groups like the Taliban and other factions within Afghanistan's patchwork of tribes for the sake of long-term stability, undermining entirely the artificially imposed political order the US has attempted to create and maintain. 

Attempts at "nation building" have failed, with foreign contractors and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seeking to profit from their activities within Afghanistan with little to no genuine interest in a collaborative and fundamentally constructive effort to develop the nation. 

Attempts to build up local Afghan governance and military forces have also failed because of a fundamental disconnect with American objectives and the actual aspirations of the people the US is attempting to impose its version of governance upon. 

The New York Times in an article titled, "Marines Return to Helmand Province for a Job They Thought Was Done," explains the current situation in Helmand province: 

The Marines’ new mission is a difficult one: to assist and train Afghan soldiers and police to defend the provincial capital. The Taliban control seven of the province’s 14 districts and are encroaching on five others. The government fully controls just two, local officials say.

The process of US Marines taking and holding towns, cities and districts only to have them fall immediately back into the armed opposition's hands after withdrawing is a familiar one for US foreign policy. It is the same process that played out repeatedly in Southeast Asia as the United States struggled to impose its political will upon the people of Vietnam.

Ultimately the US conceded defeat in Vietnam with the nation then able to determine its own future for itself. Fear-mongering over the consequences of a communist Vietnam creating a cascading effect across all of Asia and placing entire nations under the control of the Soviet Union and communist China were revealed as unfounded. The people of Vietnam were just as adamantly opposed to being dictated to by their Asian neighbors as they were by French and American invaders. 

Afghanistan is no different. 

Afghanistan Mazar-e Sharif Attack: US-Backed Regime Suffers Another Setback

April 25, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - It was just recently that the United States deployed its GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon against alleged tunnels belonging to the Islamic State terrorist organization in Afghanistan. The strike was meant to project US strength amid an increasingly challenged and contracting "international order."

However, striking a terrorist organization's tunnel complex in a country the organization did not even exist in until after the US established a presence there over 16 years ago, does not seem to project "strength" at all, but rather weakness, or perhaps even conspiracy.

The growing complexity of the Afghan conflict and America's mired presence there also fails to project the sort of "strength" Washington appears intent on demonstrating worldwide.

And if the use of a GBU-43/B weapon was meant to project "strength" to America's enemies, the message failed to reach Afghanistan's Taliban, who has consistently challenged, confounded and even reversed American objectives in the Central Asian state for over a decade and a half.

Over 100 Afghan soldiers have recently perished in an attack allegedly carried out by the Taliban, following the wake of the GBU-43/B's deployment. The BBC in an article titled, "Afghan casualties in Taliban Mazar-e Sharif attack pass 100," would report:

More than 100 Afghan soldiers were killed or wounded in a Taliban attack on an army base on Friday, the defence ministry has confirmed. 

Fighting lasted for several hours near the city of Mazar-e Sharif in northern Balkh province.

The BBC would also report that:

The raid shows the Taliban can plan and carry out complex attacks. The militants said four of the attackers had served as soldiers for a long time and had knowledge of every corner of the base.

The BBC would also note that the Taliban have made much more significant gains elsewhere, including taking back an entire district:

Also in March the Taliban said they had captured the crucial south Afghan district of Sangin after a year-long battle. 

The attack along with other activities of the Taliban, then, bears the hallmarks of a deeply rooted resistance against both the US occupation and the US-backed regime and the military forces propped up to protect it both in Kabul and across the country. That the base targeted by the recent attack also reportedly garrisoned German troops is also significant. The prospect of ending such attacks or securing any sort of "victory" over the Taliban and the local tribes allied to it is as unlikely now as a US victory was in Vietnam during the 1970's.

Efforts to "rebuild" Afghanistan have suffered from a lack of genuine participation and shared vision from among the Afghans working with foreign contractors. In turn, foreign contractors seek to fulfill their contracts and spend their money back home, clearly indifferent to whether or not their efforts "transform" Afghanistan into the ideal client state Washington envisions. Corruption both among local Afghans participating in the US-backed regime, and the contractors charged with working beside them has grown to a pandemic. Record amounts of money have been lost with little "on the ground" to show for it.

With the very heart of US efforts undermined by America's own self-serving drive for power and wealth, and with the Taliban weathering America's longest war in its history and still carrying out "complex attacks" and taking back entire districts, America and its client regime face what is clearly an insurmountable battle against a determined, indigenous enemy.

Compounding this is the fact that Afghanistan's neighbors (those nations actually sharing a border with Afghanistan, unlike the US), are determined to broker peace deals within the country between various groups for the sake of internal and regional stability. By doing so, the Taliban have been able to work toward achieving a certain degree of political legitimacy both within Afghanistan, and more importantly, beyond its borders, securing them bases of support beyond America's and its client regime's ability to strike, all but ensuring perpetual resistance.

The real question is; how many lives more will be spent, both among Afghanistan's US-trained security forces and the US-led coalition forces supporting them, and the civilian population subjected to attacks from US drones, Western warplanes and the largest non-nuclear weapon in America's arsenal until the US accepts it is once again fighting (and losing) another "Vietnam War?"

Also worth asking is; why the so-called "international community," and in particular, the United Nations, remains indifferent to America's occupation of Afghanistan and its 16 years of warfare there, or the US coalition devastation of Yemen, and instead, so focused on obstructing Syria's efforts to restore order and security within its borders?

The US-led "international order" is suffering serious setbacks, increasing resistance from alternative centers of global power and appears increasingly unstable. But an "international order" indifferent to both human life and global stability most likely should be undermined and dismantled, and with all possible expediency.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.    

Afghanistan: Why Did the US Deploy its Largest Non-Nuclear Ordnance?

April 19, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Sixteen years onward and the US is no closer to its alleged goal of creating a stable Afghanistan free of terrorist organizations using its territory to stage attacks  regionally and globally. Thousands of US troops still remain in Afghanistan, attempting to prop up the disorganized, immensely corrupt regime Washington installed and maintains in the nation's capital of Kabul. Entire provinces of the nation remain under the control of groups opposed to both the regime in Kabul and its American sponsors.  

Furthermore, Afghanistan's neighbors, including Russia, China and Iran, have attempted to broker a peace between Afghanistan's various factions, undermining America's divide and conquer strategy.

More recently, the US announced that it had deployed its largest non-nuclear ordnance in an operation it claims was targeting terrorists of the Islamic State organization.

The New York Times in an article titled, "U.S. Drops ‘Mother of All Bombs’ on ISIS Caves in Afghanistan," claims that:

The United States dropped the “mother of all bombs” — the most powerful conventional bomb in the American arsenal — on an Islamic State cave complex in Afghanistan on Thursday, the Pentagon said, unleashing a weapon so massive that it had to be dropped from the rear of a cargo plane. 

The strike was the first combat use of what is formally named the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast. President Trump has bestowed additional authority on the Pentagon in his first months in office, which the military has argued will help it defeat the Islamic State more speedily. Mr. Trump did not say whether he had personally approved Thursday’s mission.

However, the narrative propagated by both the US media and the government that the US is attempting to "defeat the Islamic State more speedily" is fundamentally flawed.

It was the US, by its own admission, that sought the creation of a "Salafist principality" in eastern Syria, precisely where the Islamic State now resides. It was also admitted by the United States that its closest allies in the Persian Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, constitute state sponsors of the Islamic State.

A genuine effort to defeat the Islamic State would require then, to first identify and eliminate the source of the terrorist organization's funding and fighting capacity. The US has demonstrably failed to do either, and instead continues using the terrorist organization as a pretext to maintain a global military presence to "fight" the group perpetually. Its military presence also coincidentally allows the US to continue confronting and undermining competitors seeking to establish an alternative, multipolar world order.

What Does the use of MOAB Mean for US Foreign Policy? 

At face value, the use of such an immense ordnance by the US so many years after it began its military operations in Afghanistan in 2001, would appear to be a sign of desperation. That sixteen years onward, the US is still mired in combat operations fighting against multiplying terrorist threats including the Islamic State which previously did not exist in Afghanistan, indicates an absolute and total failure of US foreign policy in Central Asia.

3 Realities You Aren't Being Told About Afghanistan

January 11, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - US commander of US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General John Nicholson's December 2016 briefing was paradoxical and perhaps indicative of the bankrupted foreign policy that defines America's occupation in Afghanistan.

The US Department of Defense published General Nicholson's full briefing titled, "Department of Defense Press Briefing by General Nicholson in the Pentagon Briefing Room." In it, three truths in particular emerged.

1. "Stronger Afghan Military" Still Requires Years More of US Hand-Holding

The briefing paradoxically claimed that America's proxy regime in Kabul it has attempted to prop up for the past 15 years is gaining strength and independence from US-NATO assistance, even as US Marines prepared to deploy back to Afghanistan's Helmand province for what the Pentagon announced will be years more of US troop rotations.

The Washington Post in an article titled, "Thousands of Marines fought in southern Afghanistan. Now, the service is going back," would report that:

About 300 Marines with a unit called Task Force Southwest will deploy, advising the Afghan army’s 215th Corps and Afghan national police with the 505th Zone. The forces will work in part from a large Afghan installation known during earlier Marine operations as Camp Leatherneck, but will be based in other locations and could face combat, senior Marine officers said Friday.

The Post would also report:

Senior Marine officials did not say why the service will take over the mission in Helmand, but it is expected that there could be several rotations of Marine task forces there in coming years.

In other words, promises of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, promises that formed the foundation of political campaign promises for years, were made in vain with US troops facing an unending, futile commitment to occupying the Central Asian state for years to come, just as US troops did in Vietnam during the 1960s-1970s.

Likewise, claims by military commanders and US policymakers that Afghanistan's government is becoming increasingly "independent" defies even the most basic admissions the US military and government themselves provide in terms of statistics and US troop deployment schedules.

Like the now non-existent South Vietnamese government, the current Afghan government cannot sustain itself without a significant foreign presence, because despite the immense amount of monetary, military and political resources poured into it, it lacks legitimacy in Afghanistan itself where it matters most.

2. US Taxpayers Will Pay Twice for Afghanistan's Ineffectual Military 

General Nicholson's briefing also revealed that the military assets US taxpayers have provided Washington's proxy regime in Kabul will essentially be rendered void since most of them depend on Russian parts and maintenance assistance no longer available under Washington's ever-expanding sanctions targeting Moscow.

US War in Afghanistan Silently Slips into the Abyss

November 3, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Despite the United States being engaged in what it calls "reconstruction" in Afghanistan, quarterly reports on their progress doing so reveals expanding violence and deepening poverty.



Washington Times in an article titled, "Afghanistan failures rising, progress eroding 15 years after U.S. intervention," reports that:

Opium production is up 43 percent in Afghanistan, the economy is struggling and the government has lost ground to insurgents over the last year, according to an inspector general’s report released Sunday that shows ongoing failures overshadowing the few signs of hope.

Indeed, every quarter, the "Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction," or SIGAR, submits a report to the US Congress regarding US activities in Afghanistan regarding "reconstruction."

In reality, it is not only an audit that provides insight into America's ongoing, now 15 year long military occupation of Afghanistan, but reveals the very nature of this so-called "reconstruction" process. It is one that ensures inevitably whatever regime sits in Kabul remains entirely dependent on the United States, on immense funding from abroad and amid a conflict that seems only to expand as US troops "drawdown." It also depicts an immensely ineffective "reconstruction" process, riddled with corruption and unsustainable programs that is creating a nation according to US interests, with institutions built by and for America's own endgame, not that of the Afghan population's future.

It also reveals the role of organizations like USAID, depicted as rendering aid to foreign nations, while in reality overseeing an empire of corrupt contractors pursuing ineffective programs amid an unraveling nation.

Building a Nation in Wall Street's Dysfunctional, Unsustainable Image

One of the benefits of destroying an entire nation is the opportunity to rebuild it precisely how the conqueror desires. SIGAR reports, including the most recent, provide valuable insight into this process.

America's Drone Wars: Uprooting Terrorism? Or Trimming Its Branches?

July 4, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - The Washington Post in its recent article, "How Obama went from reluctant warrior to drone champion," attempts to address the White House's recent claims regarding civilian casualties resulting from US drone strikes since 2009.

The article points out that while the US officially claims "between 64 and 116" civilians have been killed, it also includes estimates from various think-tanks and pro-war propaganda outlets admitting to at least 200-300 civilian deaths.

However, even these numbers are conservatively low, and in the Washington Post's attempt to "check" White House numbers, it itself appears to be attempting to downplay the full scale of America's global drone operations, portraying it as a perhaps ill-fated but honest attempt to target and eliminate dangerous terrorists. However, it is anything but, and the "numbers game" is merely a distraction from this fact.

Leaked US Documents Reveal Drones Seek to Create, Not Stop Terror 

It was revealed by the Intercept through leaked US government documents that civilians may account for as much as 90% of all casualties from drone strikes. In its first article in a long series detailing America's drone operations titled, "The Assassination Complex," it reports:

...documents detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia, where the U.S. has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse.

And upon viewing the leaked Operation Haymaker documents, it becomes clear that America's drone operations in Afghanistan have admittedly very little tactical value in eliminating specific "terrorists," and the actual "benefits" noted amid these operations is instead the perpetuation of terror, fear and sociopolitical division in targeted areas, including among civilian populations.

Considering these noted "benefits," high civilian casualty rates of up to 90% makes sense. If the goal is to simply instill fear, it doesn't matter who dies, just as long as someone does. 

First Priority: Smashing Resistance, Not Stopping Terrorists 

It should be remembered that nations like Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan are home to fiercely independent networks of localized tribes.

ISIS in Afghanistan: Proxy War against Iran and China

August 5, 2015 (Eric Draitser - NEO) - The nature of the war in Afghanistan has shifted dramatically in recent months. While the US and NATO continue to be actively involved in the country – their strategic objectives having changed very little since the Bush administration launched the war nearly a decade and a half ago – the complexion of the battlefield, and the parties actively engaged in the war, has changed significantly.

The emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan, along with the impending withdrawal of US-NATO troops from the country, has driven the Taliban into a marriage of convenience, if not an outright alliance, with Iran. What seemed like an unfathomable scenario just a few years ago, Shia Iran’s support for the hardline Sunni Taliban has become a reality due to the changing circumstances of the war. Though it may be hard to believe, such an alliance is now a critical element of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. But its significance is far larger than just shifting the balance of power within the country.

Instead, Afghanistan is now in many ways a proxy conflict between the US and its western and Gulf allies on the one hand, and Iran and certain non-western countries, most notably China, on the other. If the contours of the conflict might not be immediately apparent, that is only because the western media, and all the alleged brainiacs of the corporate think tanks, have failed to present the conflict in its true context. The narrative of Afghanistan, to the extent that it’s discussed at all, continues to be about terrorism and stability, nation-building and “support.” But this is a fundamental misunderstanding and mischaracterization of the current war, and the agenda driving it.

And what is this new and dangerous agenda? It is about no less than the future of Afghanistan and Central Asia. It is about the US and its allies clinging to the country, a key foothold in the region, and wanting to find any pretext to maintain their presence. It is about Iran and China positioning themselves in the country for the inevitable moment of US withdrawal and the opening up of Afghanistan’s economy. At the most basic level, it is about access and influence. And, as usual in this part of the world, terrorism and extremism are the most potent weapons.

The New Afghan War: Enter ISIS

When the Islamic State (ISIS) made its first public appearance in Afghanistan in the fall of 2014 passing out pamphlets in the Afghan refugee camps along the Pakistani border, it was to very little international fanfare. In fact, many doubted at the time whether it was a genuine presence, or merely a publicity stunt designed to raise the terror organization’s public image. However, within a few weeks, ISIS militants committed a mass beheading in the strategically vital Ghazni province, an important region of the country that lies on the Kabul-Kandahar highway.  This incident officially put ISIS on the map in Afghanistan, and marked a significant sea change in the nature of the conflict there.

Grisly Peshawar Slaughter - Who Created Taliban, Who Still Funds Them?

December 16, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) Taliban militants stormed an army public school in the northern city of Peshawar, killing over 100, including many young students. It is believed up to 10 militants took part in the attack, dressed as soldiers to first infiltrate the school's grounds before beginning the attack. 

While the details of the attack are forthcoming, the background of the Taliban and the persistent threat it represents is well established, though often spun across the Western media. 


Who Put the Taliban into Power? Who is Funding them Now? 

In the 1980's the United States, Saudi Arabia, and elements within the then Pakistani government funneled millions of dollars, weapons, equipment, and even foreign fighters into Afghanistan in a bid to oust Soviet occupiers. Representatives of this armed proxy front would even visit the White House, meeting President Ronald Reagan personally. 

The "Mujaheddin" would successfully expel the Soviet Union and among the many armed groups propped up by the West and its allies, the Taliban would establish primacy over Kabul. While Western media would have the general public believe the US rejected the Taliban, never intending them to come to power, it should be noted that the Afghans who visited Reagan in the 1980's would not be the last to visit the US and cut deals with powerful American corporate-financier interests. 

In 1997, Taliban representatives would find themselves in Texas, discussing a possible oil pipeline with energy company Unocal (now merged with Chevron). The BBC would report in a 1997 article titled, "Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline," that:

A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan.

A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.

Image: Unocal, now merged with Chevron, had attempted to build a pipeline across Afghanistan in cooperation with the Taliban and with the expressed backing of the US government - then operating under the Clinton administration. 

However, it was already claimed by the US that the Taliban had been "harboring" Osama Bin Laden since 1996, and had branded the Taliban's human rights record as "despicable." The Telegraph in an artile titled, "Oil barons court Taliban in Texas," would report (emphasis added): 

The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

It is clear that to the West, as they were during the proxy war against the Soviets, and during attempts to forge an oil pipeline across Afghan territory, the Taliban remain a tool, not an ally - to be used and abused whenever and however necessary to advance Wall Street and Washington's agenda - a self-serving Machiavellian agenda clearly devoid of principles. 

This can be seen in play, even now as the Taliban serve as a proxy force to torment the West's political enemies in Pakistan with and serve as a perpetual justification for military intervention in neighboring Afghanistan. 

Obama, Malala and the Militants America Put into Power

October 15, 2014 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - It would seem only natural that the presumed arbiters of the world would see their greetings and congratulations as the natural pinnacle of success for any they deem a global hero. And such is the case of now Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai who has been given an audience with US President Barack Obama (also a Nobel Peace Prize recipient) to be congratulated on for having "inspired people around the world with her determined efforts for girls' right to education." 

Malala Yousafzai was thrust into headlines when she was attacked and nearly killed in 2012 by Taliban militants in an attempt to stop her advocacy of greater access to education for children, and young girls in particular. 

But even as US President Barack Obama offered his empty words of congratulations to the young activist, the United States military and its intelligence agencies were busy along the Afghan-Pakistani border killing "suspected militants" alongside scores of innocent civilians, men, women and children just like Malala Yousafzai herself. In headlines the very same day as President Obama's meeting with Malala Yousafzai it would be reported that 2 more would be killed in a "suspected US done attack." 

Killing Civilians in a War Against Militants of America's Own Creation 

Admitted by prominent Washington think tank Brookings Institution, it is estimated that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also die in US drone attacks. This is amid a conflict with militants that had once fought Washington's proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's, a proxy war that saw socioeconomic progress made under Soviet patronage rolled back, including access to education for young girls and women. Such progress was rolled back and replaced by the oppressive, medieval ideology of the fighters the US eventually propelled to victory and power.   

So while the US continues the mass murder of Afghan and Pakistani civilians allegedly fighting the very militants it helped thrust into power in the 1980's, the US is "congratulating" Malala Yousafzai for nearly being killed amid danger the West's own media networks knowingly and intentionally put her in to sell news stories. 

Hypocrisy: US Arms Al Qaeda in Syria, Mass-Slaughters Civilians in Afghanistan

February 13, 2013 (LD) - AFP has reported that a recent NATO airstrike in Afghanistan has killed over 10 civilians in an all-too-familiar headline glossed over by the Western media in an exercise of both depravity and hypocrisy. RT's article, "NATO airstrike kills 10 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children - officials," notes in particular that up to 11,864 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2011, and that civilian deaths before 2007 were not even tracked by the UN.

Such facts reveal alarming hypocrisy as the UN keeps almost daily, inflated tallies of civilian deaths elsewhere, in particular, in nations like Libya and Syria where Western interests have been heavily involved in regime change and in dire need of manipulating public perception worldwide. The United Nations had in fact pieced together a dubious report crafted from "witness accounts" compiled not in Syria, or even beyond its borders in a refugee camp, but instead, in Geneva by "witnesses" supplied by the so-called Syrian "opposition."

Image: Just some of the corporate members of the US-Qatar Business Council, whose president just so happens to sit on the same board of directors of the Middle East Policy Center as Karen AbuZayd, co-author of one of many conveniently timed UN Human Rights Council reports on Syria.

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Afghanistan: Perpetual Destabilization

4th generation warfare dictates perpetual destabilization for Afghanistan, withdrawal of US troops doesn't mean end of US presence.

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTV / Tarpley.net
April 19, 2012