Press TV
August 6, 2013
US ‘playing both sides’ in Afghanistan at the cost of Afghans’ lives
The United States “is playing on both sides” in Afghanistan, subsidizing the Taliban’s insurgency on the one hand and deploying troops in the country to fight the Taliban on the other, says Rick Rozoff, manager of the Stop NATO network.
“The US has played both sides of the street consistently in Afghanistan at the cost of the Afghan people in terms of lives, displacement, terrorizing the civilian population, and so forth,” said Rozoff in a phone interview with Press TV on Monday.
US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko has revealed that since 2008, the US government has granted over $150 million to contractors in Afghanistan who are supporters of the Taliban.
Rozoff said such reports might be “shocking on the surface, I’m sure, to the average American who had encountered that news. If he or she ever has the opportunity of encountering that news, that’s why news agencies and networks like Press TV are so indispensable throughout the world. But, in fact, this should not be so surprising.”
In March, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused the Taliban and the US of working in concert to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if foreign troops leave as planned by the end of 2014.
Moreover, in June, Karzai suspended talks with Washington on a long-term security agreement in response to the opening of a Taliban office in the Qatari capital, Doha, for planned negotiations between the US and the Afghan militant group.
“We can remember not too long ago, maybe three months ago, the opening of the Taliban mission in the Persian Gulf which flew the Taliban flag as though it were the national flag of Afghanistan. This clearly had been done in conjunction with the US government,” said Rozoff.
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