US to send 7000 troops back into Afganistan. The ostensible purpose of these operations is the evacuation of US personnel from Afghanistan, what the Pentagon classified as a “Noncombatant Evacuation Operation” or NOE. How long they will remain deployed in the war-torn country has not been disclosed. Their mission, however, is undoubtedly part of a desperate bid to forestall, at least temporarily, the Taliban’s taking of Kabul.
War is the continuation of policy by other means.
US policies in Afghanistan, in Irak, in Iran, in Syria and in the whole area have been a disaster. A war cannot be really won in such conditions.
MoA: Afghanistan - Taliban Enter Kabul - Will Announce Interim Government
All cities are now in Taliban hands as are all border crossings. President Ashraf Ghani has resigned .
A new interim government will be announced as soon as Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrives in Kabul. The U.S. is frantically evacuating its embassy.
No surprise about Ghani. These puppet governments can only exist if American forces are protecting them.
I’m watching the news this morning and it looks like the Fall of Saigon all over again. It’s really bad. I don’t think we’ve learned anything in the last 48 (?) years.
The mess US imperialism and it’s puppets allies leave behind
After 20 years, the Afghan army learned what?
Good to know some Americans realize this. Most Afghanis are either pro-Taliban or don’t care.
Best Twitter quote
Martin Cowen
@mlcowen
“The War in Afghanistan was a complete success for 20 years for the Military Industrial Complex. The only true purpose ever was to enrich the MIC. Every other “reason” was a lie.”
-Martin Cowen appears to be a Libertarian Party
candidate for Congress: but an excellent quote.
Martin Cowen is mistaken. It wasn’t going well at all and the Taliban were already pushing into Afghanistan. Since the Afghan military gave up fighting, there was no purpose for our military to stay there. It was literally Saigon all over again.
Martin is 100% correct. The defence contractors have done very well in these past 20 years. That’s why corporate media is very upset with Biden on this.
The dotard had no plan, so I’m not sure why you think Martin is 100% correct.
Yes you are right Mriana - a major success for the MIC.
And then these this bit of foresight
What the WSWS wrote about the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001
On October 7, 2001, Washington and its NATO allies launched a full-scale military assault against the Islamist Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda bases in the country.
From the outset of the invasion, the WSWS exposed the lies of the Bush administration that its illegal invasion of Afghanistan was an act of self-defense in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, less than one month before.
In a statement published on October 9, 2001, entitled, “Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan,” the WSWS explained:
But while the events of September 11 have served as the catalyst for the assault on Afghanistan, the cause is far deeper. The nature of this or any war, its progressive or reactionary character, is determined not by the immediate events that preceded it, but rather by the class structures, economic foundations and international roles of the states that are involved. From this decisive standpoint, the present action by the United States is an imperialist war.
The US government initiated the war in pursuit of far-reaching international interests of the American ruling elite. What is the main purpose of the war? The collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago created a political vacuum in Central Asia, which is home to the second largest deposit of proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world.
The WSWS deepened its coverage with a historical overview of Afghanistan since the end of the Soviet occupation. Recounting the initial US support for Islamic fundamentalists such as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, the WSWS simultaneously maintained a scathing critique of US imperialism and denounced the reactionary and ultimately pro-imperialist method of terrorism. Far from being irreconcilable opposites, the Islamic fundamentalists had a symbiotic relationship with American imperialism and served as important tools of US foreign policy.
The invasion of Afghanistan saw a further movement of pacifist and former radical “left” commentators into the camp of imperialism. Writers like Christopher Hitchens had first rallied to the cause of imperialist “humanitarian” interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Now they were using the 9/11 attacks as justification for giving the US government carte blanche to wage war against what they dubbed “Islamo-fascism.” In Germany, the Green Party, part of the coalition government with the Social Democrats, voted to endorse the war and the dispatch of German troops to join it.
As the conflict unfolded, the WSWS exhaustively reported the events of the war and the political repercussions in all the countries involved. There were articles on civilian casualties and the open repudiation of international laws and conventions, summed up in events like the massacre of prisoners of war by US and British forces in Mazar-i-Sharif, on worldwide anti-war protests, and the terrible conditions facing the population of the invaded country.
By the end of the year, the Taliban had withdrawn or been forced out of every major city. Hamid Karzai was placed in power by the occupying forces. Rather than signifying a stable situation, however, the new client state, as the WSWS explained, was riddled with rival ethnic and religious factions backed by competing foreign powers.
Far from being a self-contained episode, the invasion of Afghanistan was part of a new redivision of the world among the imperialist powers. In a commentary by Nick Beams on articles in the Wall Street Journal calling for the reestablishment of direct colonialism in “failed states” like Afghanistan, the WSWS pointed out that the subjugation of Afghanistan would inevitably lead to further conflict. Beams wrote:
The value of these articles is that they make all too clear that under the banner of the global fight against terrorism, the imperialist powers, led by the United States, are preparing nothing less than the re-organization of the world through the imposition of military power. This has immediate political consequences. Militarization of international relations inevitably implies militarization of politics at home: imperialism is incompatible with democratic forms of rule.
Furthermore they all make one significant omission as they harken back to the “glory days” of British imperialism. The carve-up of the world in the latter part of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th did not bring peace and prosperity. Rather, it led to two inter-imperialist wars, resulting in hundreds of millions of deaths, as the major capitalist powers—the US, Britain, Germany, France and Japan—inevitably came into conflict with each other in the global struggle for resources, markets and spheres of influence.
I don’t know how the war in the Middle East was an act of self-defense. The U.S. military killed civilians, who had nothing to do with 9/11. The Shrub never actually had our military capture and kill or at least put them on trial for their crimes, any of the terrorists who did 9/11. President Obama had our military go in and get Bin Laden and despite wanting to see pics of his dead body to know for sure the man is dead (though I’d never wish that on anyone), he is allegedly dead and thrown into the ocean. That wasn’t your Repugs who did that. President Obama’s administration and watch did that. IMHO, we didn’t need war, but rather get the terrorist who did 9/11. I was against it from the beginning when the Shrub started it and I’ve always been against. When President Obama said we needed to into another country and get out of wherever we were at the time, I didn’t think that was good. Although fighting “Islamo-fascism” isn’t a bad idea, but not killing people to do it though.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the movie “Zero Dark Thirty”. It starts with a torture scene and a guy who has to quit that job. The woman who eventually leads the team that gets bin Laden is also there, and she stays during the transition from Bush to Obama. News pieces sometimes play in the background, and the military people talk about the changes that are coming.
It’s easy to miss, but the pivotal scene is a small meeting in a large board room. The woman is there and the guy leading the meeting is telling them that’s just them now, there is no more direct support from the President, no more whipping up the American people to support torture and midnight raids. The team then shifts into detective and police work. So, not a spoiler, since you know they get him, but plenty of intrigue and gunfire along the way.
Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s *Zero Dark Thirty
You have got to be joking. The film is full of lies from start to finish as highlighted by Seymour Hersh. CIA-embedded Hollywood liars and their lies.
As he wrote it’s a film for the glorification and justification of torture and State assassination.
The film clearly argues that the torture sessions produced the key initial intelligence that led eight years later to bin Laden, a claim made by some on the Republican right and within the CIA itself that has been thoroughly refuted, as was he wrote in a 6,000-page report on the question by the Senate Intelligence Committee
Bigelow and Boal hardly made a secret of the fact that they enjoyed intimate and unprecedented cooperation from the CIA and the Obama administration in the development of the project. Emails and transcripts released in May 2012 revealed that the previous July Bigelow and Boal had met with Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers and other Defense Department officials. Boal had earlier held discussions with top administration officials, including Obama’s Chief Counterterrorism Advisor John O. Brennan and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough
No DJ, I’m not joking. And here’s where your entire strategy and approach to this forum fails. Because you have repeatedly responded with name-calling and claims to know things without citation and calls for us to get out of our echo chambers, I have no reason to look into your claims here. Sure, I like that I now know there is controversy with this film, I’ll be more careful when mentioning it. But how do you know what the CIA knows? You don’t. Big deal, some people don’t like a film, that was not the point of my post.
And even if I’m completly wrong, you have responded to me in a way that gives me no reason to try to gain a further understanding of you. I expect nothing from you but further insults and cries of disbelief that I would think what I think. There are only about a million articles on this topic right now, the problem of people not listening and not attempting to dialog. Read one, read one article on that topic, and get back to me. Then I might let you stay here as a member of this forum.
Dead civilians are an unfortunate fact of war. It does not negate the need for war.
We killed hundreds, if not thousands of terrorists connected to 911. We obviously couldn’t do anything to the hijackers because they were already dead. You must think Guantanamo Bay is just an all expenses paid vacation for Muslims.
Obama’s admin were standing on the shoulders of the those who did all the hard work. Obama also needlessly expanded the war after Bin Laden was dead, and started intervening in 3 other nations.
Killing is the only way to fight it. They don’t take no for an answer.
thatoneguy
Blockquote Dead civilians are an unfortunate fact of war. It does not negate the need for war.
Not worth reading, just skip to the bottom.
This is why I won’t listen to what you have to say. Proving I was right to skip everything in between. War is good for nothing, except to keep the undertaker employed and mothers, wifes, and others who love the person in tears and mourning. It is good for nothing but death and destruction. There is no reason to go to war, except to be a kill monger. Does this mean all the soldiers are kill mongers? No, they didn’t decide to go off to war. They were told to do to kill people and not given a choice. Thank you congress who decides this with the help of the commander and chief.