If Iraq was bad, Afghanistan is going to be worse. Nothing said or done at the Lisbon conference, which is largely an exercise in self-deception, is going to make this better and it may well make it worse.

It is not just that the war is going badly, but that Nato's need to show progress has produced a number of counter-productive quick fixes likely to deepen the violence. These dangerous initiatives include setting up local militias to fight the Taliban where government forces are weak. These are often guns-for-hire provided by local warlords who prey on ordinary Afghans.The US military has been making much of its strategy of assassinating mid-level Taliban commanders, but one study on the ground showed that many of these are men highly regarded in their communities. It concluded that killing them infuriated local people and led to many of them being recruited by the Taliban.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-be-under-no-illusion-nato-is-in-no-shape-to-make-progress-in-this-graveyard-of-empires-2139191.html

The latest US diplomatic documents released by Wikileaks contain harsh criticism of the UK military effort in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009.

The cables say US officials and Afghan President Hamid Karzai believed UK forces were not up to the task of securing Helmand province on their own.

A US general, Gen Dan McNeill, is quoted as saying that British forces have made a mess of Helmand.

The details have been published in the Guardian newspaper.

Criticism of the British military effort goes back to 2007 when Gen McNeill was the US general in charge of Nato forces.

He was said to be "particularly dismayed by the British effort" and is reported to have said "they had made a mess of things in Helmand, their tactics were wrong".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11906147

Afghanistan has been dealing with dire security instability for years, with the situation becoming sharply worse in recent months, as the Taliban has been carrying out offensives on major cities.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Sunday that Russia was the only force that could help Afghanistan fight terrorism.

"I understand perfectly well that if you [Russia] build new relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan, you can help us. Not the Britons as we kicked them out of the country several times, not the Americans as they've been killing us for 17 years, but Russia only. We [Afghanistan] are the last barrier from terrorists. We've been fighting continuously for a century and a half," Karzai toldthe Russian NTV TV channel.

"Moscow has always helped us, even when its forces invaded Afghanistan at the invitation of then-president Babrak Karmal. We surely fought each other at those times, but you [Russia] used to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan. Americans lie when they say that al-Qaeda emerged as the result of your invasion. They used the war to grow al-Qaeda in Pakistani military camps. They wanted to be the only superpower and they did it. The USSR collapsed and one of the reasons was the Afghan war," Karzai said.

The former president noted that, when the US had declared war against the Taliban, he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin that "something wrong began to emerge."

"The Americans deceived everyone again at that time. What kind of war with terrorism is it? The Taliban has more and more weapons…and we can't handle them without Russia's help, because we understand that the Taliban is being fuelled from Pakistan as the group partly consists of foreigners," Karzai noted.

According to the official, the US firstly allegedly pumped billions into Pakistan and then declared there were no special relations with the country as the Asian nation failed the US.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804081063341014-afghanistan-taliba...

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The Biden administration previously stated it would be wrapping up the US mission in Afghanistan by September 11, a date that would mark the 20th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The Biden White House's revised timeline came after the US failed to fully withdraw from the war-torn nation by the previous administration's May 1 pullout. 

US President Joe Biden declared on Thursday that a complete US withdrawal of US service members from Afghanistan will conclude on August 31, less than two weeks before the 9/11 deadline that had been initially proposed by the administration.

Offering the nation an update on the US' withdrawal procedures, Biden informed the public that the US military has "achieved" its goals in Afghanistan, underscoring that the continued US support for the people of the Middle Eastern country will "endure."

"The United States did what we went to do in Afghanistan: get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and get Osama bin Laden," Biden remarked. "We did not go to Afghanistan to nation build."

Asked about the future government of Afghanistan, Biden stressed to reporters that it's "highly unlikely" that the Taliban would be overrunning the nation, even if the militant force appears to be "at its strongest" since 2001.

“It’s up to the Afghans to make decisions about the future of their country,” he said.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/202107081083340107-president-joe-biden-us-will-be-out-of-afghanistan-by-31-august/

See toon at top (note date).

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