In 1978, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, decided to use the Muslim Brotherhood against the Soviets, and sent Arab combatants to support the Afghan opposition against the Communist regime. Responding to a call for help from the Afghan government, the Red Army became bogged down in an unwinnable conflict.
No other country in the world symbolizes the decline of the American empire as much as Afghanistan. There is virtually no possibility of a military victory over the Taliban and little chance of leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy — facts that Washington’s policy community has mostly been unable to accept…. It is a vestigial limb of empire, and it is time to let it go.
– Op-Ed by Robert D. Kaplan, The New York Times, January 1, 2019
From Ochelli.com
Mike Swanson Author of The War State kicked off Tuesday telling us about his trip to Dallas for the recent JFK conferences.
In Wall Street, World Chuck and Mike discussed the market behavior and the interesting displays by those who lost in the NYC casino. Plus what did the elections tell us about 2020? Was the Blue Ripple exactly what Trump needed to have a handy Scapegoat for the next 2 years?
Washington would be wise to engage the new Pakistani administration to help fight extremism at home and bring about reasonable solutions to regional crises, rather than exacerbate them, says Ann Wright. By Ann Wright The relationship between the Trump administration…Read more →
The 19th Century British politician, Lord Palmerston was of the view that: “Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Henry Kissinger rephrased it: “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” This applies to Russia which hosted the Taliban for peace talks in Moscow attended by Afghanistan, India, Iran, China, Pakistan and five former[Read More...]
Iqbal Khyber and Badshah Khan bring a breath of fresh air
Grade 12 Afghan student Jamila Omary asked, “Do you have any plans to arm yourselves, because of the threats and dangers you have faced?”
Iqbal Khyber answered, “No. Though it is easy to buy weapons today, arming ourselves will worsen the war. Weapons will make us less secure.”
What a breath of fresh air in the stench of war-as-usual!
Both sides had a different version of events.
It’s an incident back in 2015 which the White House would prefer to sweep under the proverbial rug. After the reports were confirmed of the downing of the C-130 aircraft, a war of words quickly ensued with the Taliban claiming a successful shoot-down, while the U.S. deny any altercation – claiming it was just an accident.
What really happened?
RT International reports…
(ANTIWAR.COM) — While the exact date hasn’t been set yet, Afghan and Russian officials have confirmed that they will be co-chairing a series of new talks with the Taliban in Moscow. The officials say the focus now is on content, with the date to be settled afterward. The Russian government had initially organized a multi-national conference for Afghanistan that […]
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – As the U.S. marked the 17 years that have passed since September 11, 2001, people across the Muslim world have looked back on the destruction the U.S. has unleashed in the so-called “Global War on Terror” that was launched in the wake of the World Trade Center’s destruction.
It may seem paradoxical that any American interest would seek to deliberately prolong the Afghan quagmire. Costing trillions of dollars to the national debt, one would think that US planners are anxious to wind down the war and cut their immense losses. Not so, it seems.
Like the classic 1960s satire film, Dr. Strangelove, and how he came to “love the A-bomb”, there are present-day elements in the US military-security apparatus that seem to be just fine about being wedded to the mayhem in Afghanistan.
