Yankee Go Home!
Once again I find myself confronted by the ever widening gap between reality, as determined by independent observation, and the nightly news download.
At least it's not covid this time i guess.
The latest from the official media is that US troops have fled Afghanistan with their tails between their legs, handing over control to the vile, medieval and homicidal Taliban. To this I can only say not before time, but who even knows the number of mercenaries still nested in the country. Reports are that ISIS fighters have already been deployed into Afghanistan by their CIA handlers.
We should of course be grateful for the end of a 20 year occupation which has brought nothing but misery and despair to the Afghan people, and wasted two trillion dollars of US taxpayers money.
It is of course highly probable that this is all a smokescreen. For what, we can only speculate for now. As more media reports come out blaming Biden’s incompetence, an opportunity to dump the senile septuagenarian and replace him with his heir apparent seems most likely. The lunatics running the madhouse certainly seem to be past the point of no return now, and hyper-accelerating the shift to full fascism would seem like a logical move at this point.
Meanwhile the shitlib media stands aghast in selective moral outrage.
To those shocked and appalled at the idea of handing over the country to a militant group steeped in Wahhabi ideology, I can only say, where is your moral outrage when it comes to our ‘friend and ally’ Saudi Arabia?
Honestly, do you think women and girls are going to be any worse off? Do you think life under US occupation has been anything short of a 20 year nightmare for the Afghan people?
As Sharmine Nawani tweeted yesterday, “The only reason Americans are shocked about what's going down in Afghanistan right now is because their media outlets have lied to them for 20 years. Everyone else in West Asia is eating popcorn.”
After a 40 year history of military adventurism, anyone who thinks the US occupation of Afghanistan has had anything to do with peacekeeping or nation building at this point should probably just crawl back under their rock.
Remember Brzinski? Carter’s Human Rights, I mean, National Security adviser? He even boasted in one of his books that he created the Islamic terrorism apparatus in order to draw the Soviet Union into its own Vietnam.
In case anyone still doesn’t get it, the US has a long history of supporting its declared enemies to achieve its short term goals, whether that be the Taliban, al Qaeda or ISIS. The purpose of the 2001 invasion was at least in part to liberate the Afghan poppy fields, the source of 90% of the worlds heroin trade, after the Taliban had taken control of the country in the 1990s and stopped the illegal trafficking of opium through CIA back channels. Hey, perpetual war is an expensive business and it needs to be funded somehow.
Anyway, don't talk to me about human rights. Geopolitics has nothing to do with human rights. Bush bombed weddings in Afghanistan. Obama bombed a hospital in Afghanistan. Trump dropped the Mother of All Bombs on Afghanistan. Biden bombed a medical clinic and a school in Afghanistan. US forces are typically indiscriminate in selecting their targets, particularly when it comes to drone attacks, and with countless civilian deaths chalked up as collateral damage, it’s no surprise that most of the locals would rather take their chances with the Taliban.
As for what this portends for the wider region, I suppose it could go either way. The idea that the militant group may be able to govern as realists with the help of its neighbors is certainly a cause for cautions optimism. If the US and Israel have given up on their fools errand to bomb Iran, we could see the axis of resistance strengthened through diplomatic ties, in turn strengthening Eurasian integration and allowing China to invest in rebuilding some of the the region's depleted and destroyed infrastructure. This will be a slow process considering the Taliban will not have access to $9.4 billion of Afghan reserves currently held in the US. (As if 20 years of occupation wasn’t enough, now they intend to starve Afghans.)
Alternately the Taliban could be being set up. Again. Used as pawns. Again. To justify year another US led war, this time presumably aimed at destabilising the last country on Israel’s bucket list.
Some of the lessons of Afghanistan that will definitely not be learned:
- Teaching the locals about democratic processes, governance, and accountability didn't elevate Afghanistan to the level of Democratic States.
- Vassal armies are fighting only as long as they are prodded by their master and offered short-term rewards.
- Employing collaborative locals as soldiers, drivers, translators, and disseminators of propaganda while all decisions are made by Americans and while the big money on big projects is made by American companies is not developing the local economy into healthy self-sufficiency. - Case Roole.
"The Taliban have told me they have appointed people to focus on the security of the city, and I hope there will be further progress on this (…) Ashraf Ghani has deserted his job and gone. He has left the scene. To fill this vacuum, legitimacy needs to be brought back. Only through a legitimate body, the security of Kabul and the whole country can be tasked to suitable hands (…) The Taliban are dominating now and I hope the domination is strong and for the good of the Afghan nation.” Former president Hamid Karzai