Uncle Sam dumps Afghan mess on Russia

Politics and Social Issues
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Uncle Sam Dumps Afghan Mess on Russia

 

By Finian Cunningham

July 05, 2021 “Information Clearing House” - - "Sputnik News " Russia is right to be alarmed about the impending chaos in Afghanistan as the United States and NATO forces finally scurry away from the war-torn country.

After 20 years of waging a futile war in the Central Asian nation, costing over 241,000 lives and trillions of dollars, the US military is pulling out in haste.
Most of its remaining 3,000 troops have hurriedly vacated the country in recent days from the giant Bagram Airbase north of the capital, Kabul. There was hardly any media coverage of the momentous yet shameful exit, which evokes memories of the disgraceful Fall of Saigon when the last of US military and CIA operatives fled Vietnam in 1975 like rats off a sinking ship.

US President Joe Biden had earlier this year declared a September deadline for withdrawing forces. The retreat has happened already, leaving Afghanistan with an uncertain and dangerous future.

The American commander of US forces, General Scott Miller, last week warned that Afghanistan is now facing a surge in civil war as Taliban militants push Afghan troops backed by Washington into ever-decreasing urban areas of control.

The perplexing thing for Russia is that Afghanistan has become a growth area for the Daesh* terror group which seems to have taken advantage of the void left by the Americans and other NATO forces. Daesh shares a similar fundamentalist Islamic ideology with the Taliban and there is good reason to suspect a level of cooperation between the two. That suggests that Afghanistan will become an even bigger haven for terrorist networks despite Taliban assurances that it will not.

If the Taliban and Daesh over-run Afghanistan in the next months, which is likely given the weak nature of US-backed Afghan security forces, then Russia will have a radical caliphate on its southern flank. It was to prevent such a threat to its national security that Moscow decided to intervene in the Syrian war to help the Assad government defeat jihadists and thereby prevent similar militants migrating to its Caucasia regions.

Don’t let an Algorithm choose what you read!
The jihadist problem of Syria was created by the United States and NATO partners as a covert means for regime change against President Assad. The Russian military intervention put paid to that American subterfuge by crushing the array of Daesh-affiliated militants.

Now, ironically, the disorderly American defeat in Afghanistan is creating potential headaches for Russia.

Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia’s national security council, has been in discussions with Kabul to reportedly map out ways by which Moscow can help maintain regional stability. The discussions have been made all the more pressing by the rapid pullout by the Americans.

“The suppression of terrorism and drug crimes, as well as trade, economic and military-technical cooperation, were discussed in detail”, the Russian security council statement said.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has also expressed concern about the spread of Daesh in northern Afghanistan. Lavrov blamed the complacency by politicians in Kabul to engage in peace talks with the Taliban as being a factor in why Daesh is burgeoning amid the internal chaos.

Moscow’s experience of Afghanistan is not a happy one. When the Soviet Union intervened in 1979 to support a then allied government in Kabul against US-backed Mujahideen (a forerunner of the Taliban), that led to a disastrous 10-year war which gravely weakened the Soviet Union.

American imperial machinations in Afghanistan – supposedly in revenge for purported 9/11 terror attacks on the US in 2001 – have created an utter catastrophe. After two decades, Afghanistan lies in ruins and the Taliban are poised to once again be back in power. A recent study by Brown University estimates the cost of the war at $2.26 trillion. That cost will grow into the future amid healthcare payouts for veterans and financial interest. More than 71,000 Afghan civilians were killed. And for what? Afghanistan is American imperial hubris and state terrorism gone mad.

It is a bitter repercussion that the criminal destruction of Afghanistan by Washington is now bequeathing a national security problem for Russia and other neighbouring nations. It is tempting to suspect that the Americans are deliberately offloading their mess onto Russia and cynically enjoying the dilemma being foisted on Moscow.

  • Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/“Islamic State”) is a terrorist organisation banned in Russia
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IS and Taliban are definitely not going to work together. There is no shared ideology between the groups as this idiot journalist thinks.

 

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Back in 2001 USA said Taliban = AlQ. Your equivocation objection is nonsense

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On The U.S. Defeat In Afghanistan

 

By Moon Of Alabama

July 05, 2021 “Information Clearing House” - - “Moon Of Alabama” - Forty two years ago the U.S. launched its war on Afghanistan:

SPIES&VESPERS @SpiesVespers - 22:24 UTC · Jul 3, 2021
#OTD July 3 1979: President Jimmy Carter signs a “presidential finding” authorizing the CIA to spend just over $500,000 on non-lethal aid to support the Afghan mujahideen against growing Soviet influence in the region. #coldwarhist

The ‘growing Soviet influence’ was the progressive PDPA government that ruled Afghanistan but did not do as Washington asked it to do. It was the U.S. ‘aid’ to rebels which forced the USSR to intervene. Everything that followed goes back to Carter’s signature.

On February 15 1989 the process of withdrawing Soviet military forces from Afghanistan was officially declared complete.
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Now, forty two years after Carter’s signature, a defeated U.S. flees from Afghanistan.

Taliban take districts in NE Afghanistan from fleeing troops - AP

The Taliban’s march through northern Afghanistan gained momentum overnight with the capture of several districts from fleeing Afghan forces, several hundred of whom fled across the border into Tajikistan, officials said Sunday.
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Since mid-April, when U.S. President Joe Biden announced the end to Afghanistan’s “forever war,” the Taliban have made strides throughout the country. But their most significant gains have been in the northern half of the country, a traditional stronghold of the U.S.-allied warlords who helped defeat them in 2001.
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Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed the fall of the districts and said most were without a fight. The Taliban in previous surrenders have shown video of Afghan soldiers taking transportation money and returning to their homes.

‘What was the point?’ Afghans rue decades of war as U.S. quits Bagram - Reuters

Malek Mir, a mechanic in Bagram who saw the Soviet Army and then the Americans come and go, said he was left with a deep sense of sadness at the futility of a foreign presence.
“They came with bombing the Taliban and got rid of their regime - but now they have left when the Taliban are so empowered that they will take over any time soon,” he said.

“What was the point of all the destruction, killing and misery they brought us? I wish they had never come.”
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“The Americans leave a legacy of failure, they’ve failed in containing the Taliban or corruption,” said Sayed Naqibullah, a shop owner in Bagram. "A small percentage of Afghans got so rich, while the vast majority still live with extreme poverty.

“In a way, we’re happy they’ve gone … We’re Afghans and we’ll find our way.”

Disaster At Hand: Documenting Afghan Military Equipment Losses Since June 2021 - Oryx

While the withdrawal of U.S. troops and their NATO allies has been praised by some and heavily criticised by others, there is one thing seemingly everyone can agree on: the 20-year U.S.-led mission to defeat the Taliban has been an utter failure.
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Similar to its withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, the U.S. leaves behind a broken military apparatus that despite the investment of tens of billions of dollars is ill-prepared to face the tasks assigned to it.
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The situation Afghanistan faces after the U.S. withdrawal is scarcely an isolated incident in modern U.S. history however. After effectively abandoning its ally South Vietnam in the 1970s, leaving behind a paralysed Iraq in 2011 and now withdrawing from Afghanistan, homecoming celebrations will be tainted by the grim prospects of those suffering the consequences of the War in Afghanistan for decades to come. The zealousness with which these military interventions are begun is only matched by the degree of subsequent indifference to the fate of the country when the realities of conflict become too uncomfortable, setting the stage for an endless repeating tragedy of interventionist disasters. Meanwhile, the local population is for generations to come unwillingly indebted to the whims of U.S. politics, a debt ironically incurred by the equally unwilling investment of trillions in American taxpayer dollars in the industry of war.

Breaking Contact Without Leaving Chaos: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan - Lester W. Grau (2007)

There is a literature and a common perception that the Soviets were defeated and driven from Afghanistan. This is not true. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, they did so in a coordinated, deliberate, professional manner, leaving behind a functioning government, an improved military and an advisory and economic effort insuring the continued viability of the government. The withdrawal was based on a coordinated diplomatic, economic and military plan permitting Soviet forces to withdraw in good order and the Afghan government to survive. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) managed to hold on despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only then, with the loss of Soviet support and the increased efforts by the Mujahideen (holy warriors) and Pakistan, did the DRA slide toward defeat in April 1992. The Soviet effort to withdraw in good order was well executed and can serve as a model for other disengagements from similar nations.
Despite spending double the time and many more resources than the Soviets, the U.S. and NATO completely failed the task they had set out for themselves to do. They ignored the lessons that could have been learned from the successful Soviet operation in Afghanistan. They were, unlike the Soviets, thoroughly defeated.

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Back in 2001 USA said Taliban = AlQ. Your equivocation objection is nonsense
No we did not but even if we did it wouldn't matter because Al Qaida and Taliban have never been the same thing.

Taliban is a tribal Pashtun movement which is distrustful of outsiders. IS and AlQ are as much outsiders in Afghanistan as we are.

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Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Blair all said if you are harbouring terrorists you are a terrorist. People fell for this bullshit without question and signed up to invade Afghanistan. Like you I believe.

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