The veneer of civilisation...

Many of the men and women we interviewed for We Gotta Get Out of This Place had never talked about their Vietnam war experience, even with their spouses and family members. But we found they could talk about a song — “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’”, “My Girl”, “And When I Die”, “Ring of Fire” and scores of others. And the talking helped heal some of the wounds left from the war.

When we began our interviews, we planned to organize it into a set of essays focusing on the most frequently mentioned songs, a Vietnam Vets Top 20 if you will, harkening back to the radio countdowns that so many of us grew up listening to.

Well, it didn’t take long for us to realize that to do justice to the vets’ diverse, and personal, musical experiences would require something more like a Top 200 — or 2,000! Still, we did find some common ground. These are the 10 most mentioned songs by the Vietnam vets we interviewed. Realizing, of course, that every soldier had their own special song that helped bring them home.

1. We Gotta Get Out of This Place by The Animals

(1965; No. 13 Billboard Hot 100)

No one saw this coming. Not the writers of the song — the dynamic Brill Building duo of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; not the group who recorded it — The Animals and their iconic lead singer, Eric Burdon; not the 3 million soldiers who fought in Vietnam who placed extra importance on the lyrics. But the fact is that We Gotta Get Out of This Place is regarded by most Vietnam vets as our We Shall Overcome, says Bobbie Keith, an Armed Forces Radio DJ in Vietnam from 1967-69. Or as Leroy Tecube, an Apache infantryman stationed south of Chu Lai in 1968, recalls: “When the chorus began, singing ability didn’t matter; drunk or sober, everyone joined in as loud as he could.” No wonder it became the title of our book!

Songs Vietnam Veterans Remember Most

 

Read more:

 

https://www.thirteen.org/blog-post/top-10-vietnam-songs-veterans-playlist/

 

See also: NO NEW PROTEST SONGS...

 

 

 

 

If we consider the war in Syria not as a singular event, but as the culmination of a world war which has persisted for a quarter of a century, we have to ask ourselves about the consequences of the imminent end of hostilities. Its completion marks the defeat of an ideology, that is to say globalisation and financial capitalism. The people who have not understood this, particularly in Western Europe, are defining their own exclusion from the rest of the world.

World wars do not only end with a winner and a loser. Their termination defines the contours of a new world.

The First World War ended with the defeat of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. The cessation of hostilities was marked by the elaboration of an international organisation, the League of Nations (LN), tasked with abolishing secret diplomacy and settling any conflicts between the member-states by arbitration.

The Second World War ended with the victory of the Soviet Union over the Nazi Reich and the Japanese Empire of hakkō ichiu [1], followed by a frantic chase between the Allies to occupy what was left of the vanquished Coalition. It gave birth to a new structure, the United Nations Organisation (UNO), tasked with preventing new wars by establishing international Law around a double legitimacy – the General Assembly, where each state has a voice, irrespective of its size, and a directorate composed of the five main victors, the Security Council.

The Cold War was not the Third World War. It did not end with the defeat of the Soviet Union, but by its collapse in and onto itself. It was not followed by the creation of new structures, but by the integration of the states of the USSR into pre-existing organisations.

The Third World War began in Yugoslavia, continued in Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, Libya and Yemen, and ended in Syria. Its battle-grounds were confined to the Balkans, the Caucasus and what we now call the « Greater Middle East ». It has cost the lives of countless Muslim and Orthodox Christian populations, without spilling over too much into the Western world. It is in the process of drawing to a close since the Putin-Trump Summit in Helsinki.

The profound changes which have transformed the world over the last 26 years transferred a part of the power of governments towards other entities, both administrative and private – and also vice versa. For example, we saw a private army, Daesh, proclaim itself a sovereign state. Or again, we watched General David Petraeus organise the most voluminous arms traffic in History when he directed the CIA, and then continue it after his resignation on behalf of a private company, the hedge fund KKR [2].

This situation may be described as a confrontation between, on the one hand, a transnational ruling class and, on the other, the governments responsible to their people.

Contrary to the imputations of propaganda, which attribute the causes of war to immediate circumstances, the true causes are to be found in rivalries and in deep-seated, ancient ambitions. States take years to challenge one another. Often, it is only with the passage of time that we are able to understand the conflicts which devour us.

For example, very few people understood what was happening during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) and waited until the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Germany(1938) to understand that it was racist ideologies which provoked the Second World War. Identically, rare are those who understood that by the war of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1992) the alliance between NATO and political Islam opened the way for the destruction of the Muslim world [3].

And today, despite the work of journalists and historians, many people have still not understood the enormity of the manipulation of which we have all been victims. They refuse to admit that NATO coordinated its Saudi and Iranian auxiliaries on the European continent. And yet this is a fact which is impossible to contest [4].

Similarly, they refuse to admit that Al-Qaïda, accused by the United States of having perpetrated the terrorist attacks of 9/11, fought under the orders of NATO in Libya and Syria. And yet this is another fact that is impossible to contradict [5].

The initial plan, which was intended to set the Muslim world against the Orthodox world, became transformed as it unfolded. There was no « war of civilisations ». Chiite Iran turned against NATO, which it had served in Yugoslavia, and allied with Orthodox Russia in order to save multi-confessional Syria.

We must open our eyes to History and prepare ourselves for the dawn of a new world system in which certain of our friends of yesterday have become our enemies of today, and vice-versa.

In Helsinki, it was not the United States which drew up an agreement with the Federation of Russia. It was the White House alone. Because the common enemy is a transnational group which exercises authority in the United States. Since this group considers itself, and not the elected President, to be the representative of the USA, it did not hesitate to immediately accuse President Trump of treason.

This transnational group has succeeded in making us believe that ideologies are dead and that History is finished. It presents globalisation, in other words Anglo-Saxon domination by way of the extension of the US language and life-style, as the consequence of the technical development of transport and communication. It assures us that a single political system is the ideal for all humanity - democracy (in other words « government of the People, by the People, for the People ») - and that it is possible to impose this ideal by force on all humanity. Finally, it presents the freedom of circulation of people and capitals as the solution to all problems of labour and investment.

However, these assertions, which we all accept in the course of our daily lives, do not stand up to a minute of thought.

Behind these lies, the transnational group has systematically worn down the Power of states and amassed fortunes.

The side which will be the victor of this long war defends, on the contrary, the idea that in order to chose their destiny, people must organise themselves into clearly-defined Nations, based either on a land or else on a common history or project. Consequently, it supports national economies rather than transnational finance.

We have just experienced the World Football Cup. If the ideology of globalisation had won the war, we should have supported not only our national team, but also the teams of other countries according to their membership of our common supra-national structures. For example, the Belgians and the French would have had to support one another mutually by waving the flag of the European Union. But this did not occur to a single supporter. This fact shows the chasm which separates the propaganda with which we are force-fed and which we repeat, and our spontaneous behaviour. Despite appearances, the superficial victory of globalism has not modified what we are.

It is obviously no coincidence if Syria, where the idea of a state was first imagined and developed several thousand years ago, is the land upon which this war will end. It is because they benefited from a true state which never stopped functioning that Syria, its people, its army and its President were able to resist against the most gigantic coalition in History, constituted by 114 member states of the United Nations.

Thierry Meyssan

Translation 
Pete Kimberley

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article202215.html

 

According to the Fars agency, following a meeting between the chiefs of the Emirati and Syrian intelligence services — generals Mahamat Al-Chamsi and Ali Mamlouk — the decision to reopen the UAE embassy in Damascus was approved.

 

The Emirates have already reopened an air link with Damascus.

 

Sheik Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the youngest son and strongman of the country, has decided to be ahead of Westerners in this regard.

 

At the initiative of the United Kingdom and France, almost all embassies in Syria were closed at the beginning of the war.

 

Read more:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article202242.html

 

Translation by Jules Letambour. Read from top.

White House national security adviser John Bolton stated on Sunday that he is interested in a proposal by Erik Prince - founder of private military company Blackwater - to shift the prosecution of the 17-year US war in Afghanistan away from the Pentagon to private mercenaries.

Bolton — an appointee of US President Donald Trump like Blackwater founder Prince's sister US Secretary of Education Betsy Devos — made his remarks earlier during an ABC.com weekly news program.

The top White House advisor's comments follow reports that Trump has allowed for the possibility of placing for-profit mercenary companies in charge of shoring up the increasingly unpopular US-supported Afghan government of former American citizen Ashraf Ghani, instead of using armed Pentagon ‘advisors.'

Asked about the likelihood of mercenaries prosecuting America's many wars abroad, Bolton averred, saying only that, "there are always a lot of discussions," cited by The Hill.

"I'm always open to new ideas," the noted warhawk added, however, although he was careful not to second-guess his boss.

"I'm not going to comment on what [Trump's] thinking is. That'll ultimately be the president's decision," he quickly noted.

Trump is said to be interested in Prince's offer to privatize the US war in Afghanistan, according to reports.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201808191067321331-Bolton-Open-to-priva...

NORTH OGDEN, Utah — The call had come again. Brent Taylor, the mayor of North Ogden and a major in the Utah National Guard, would be going to Afghanistan for his fourth deployment.

He told his constituents about it on Facebook in January, leaning into the camera to explain that he had been called to serve his country “whenever and however I can” and that he would be gone for a year, as part of a team helping to train an Afghan Army commando battalion. “Service is really what leadership is all about,” he told them.

He said goodbye to his wife, Jennie, and their seven children, and turned over his municipal duties to his friend Brent Chugg. “You need to keep safe,” Mr. Chugg told him. “I will,” Major Taylor replied.

He did not make it home. Major Taylor, 39, was killed on Saturday in an insider attack, apparently by one of the people he was there to help.

 

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/04/us/utah-mayor-killed-afghanistan-brent-taylor.html

 

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Sad case of misplaced "duty". Condolences to the family. After more than 17 years of US war in Afghanistan, isn't it time to revise the plan for this country that has been at war for the best part of the last 40 years? It took nearly 10 years for the Russians to quit. The Soviet–Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989, while trying to protect the new budding socialist government in Afghanistan. The Russians were fighting against the Taliban (then called Mujahideen) who were helped by the CIA to destroy such "socialism" in Afghanistan. Eventually the victorious Mujahideen became the Taliban who are now fighting their partner in crime, the USA. Like the German in Poland or France during WW2, the USA is not seen as a "liberator" but as an occupier. So, what is the duty of an "occupier"?... Teach locals how to occupy their own countries? Teach them how to eat Macburgers without spilling half the sweet buns on the floor? I know it's a bit more complicated than this, but the rigmarole of the US elections, past and present, are no education material to be proud of... 

• Seth Harp is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.

•  

The largest American military base in Syria covers more than five hundred acres, but it can’t be seen from the road. When I visited in mid-October, on the condition that I not reveal the exact location, I thought my taxi-driver had brought me to the wrong place. All I saw were a few Kurdish soldiers standing around a barricade. But, past the checkpoint and up a hill, a vast encampment spread out before us. The perimeter was constructed of dirt berms, sod-filled gabions, and razor wire. The runway was more than a mile long, and sunk below grade, so that planes would seem to disappear as they landed. There were hastily constructed wood buildings, huge clamshell tents, stacks of shipping containers, rows of white trucks and sport-utility vehicles, prefabricated trailers housing showers and latrines, and a dusty athletic field where soldiers were jogging around a track in the desert twilight.

Inside the main gate were soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and many others in civilian attire wearing sidearms or carrying assault rifles. Quite a few were women. Everyone looked well fed. There was a telecommunications tower, and the Wi-Fi was the best I’d had in weeks of reporting around Syria. A small store sold cigarettes, snacks, candy, energy drinks, and protein powder, as well as cheap souvenirs like kaffiyehs and fake daggers. For fifteen dollars, I bought a sweatshirt that said “Syriagonia” instead of Patagonia.

The American intervention in Syria, now in its fourth year, began as a small Special Forces mission of the kind the Pentagon is currently running in a dozen countries. In the fall of 2015, when President Barack Obama deployed fifty commandos to advise the Syrian Kurds in their war with the Islamic State, his Administration denied that he was breaking his promise not to put “boots on the ground.” “We have run special ops already,” Obama said, “and, really, this is just an extension.” Since then, the number of military personnel in the country has steadily grown, first to two hundred and fifty, then to five hundred, then to two thousand, and there’s reason to believe the true figure is now twice that. (During a press briefing in October, 2017, an Army general let slip that the number was four thousand.) Congress has not authorized military action in Syria, nor is there a United Nations mandate permitting the use of force. Nevertheless, over the last three years, the mission has morphed into something more like a conventional ground war. The United States has built a dozen or more bases from Manbij to Al-Hasakah, including four airfields, and American-backed forces now control all of Syria east of the Euphrates, an area about the size of Croatia. Four U.S. service members have died in Syria. But, because Operation Inherent Resolve, as the Pentagon calls its mission here, falls under the authority of the Joint Special Operations Command, known as jsoc, basic facts are kept classified, including the cost of the mission, the units involved, where they are located, and the number of wounded, which is believed to be substantial.

The stated purpose of the operation, which also comprises western Iraq, is to defeat the Islamic State. Under Obama, an American-backed, Kurdish-led coalition of militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., seized isis territory through 2016, in large part thanks to American airpower, which decimated isis positions in advance of the Kurdish infantry. The S.D.F. had the Islamic State’s capital city, Raqqa, surrounded by that winter, but the offensive stalled when Donald Trump took office. Trump, whose family has financial ties to Turkey, was then currying favor with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is violently hostile to ethnic minorities, especially the Kurds. For three months, Trump’s generals tried and failed to come up with an alternative plan. In the end, Trump quietly doubled down on Obama’s strategy and upped the number of commandos, sent conventional troops, including marines, and reinforced the S.D.F. with weapons and vehicles. Raqqa fell to the S.D.F. in October of 2017, and the Islamic State ceased to exist as a territorial polity.

Today, the American commandos and marines are down the Euphrates River Valley in Deir Ezzor, supporting the S.D.F. in a final offensive against the last pocket of isis territory in Syria. Meanwhile, the Assad regime, freed from having to fight the Islamic State on its own, is on the verge of defeating the remaining Sunni rebels in Idlib. Turkey is still a wild card, but the once-cluttered battlefield map is increasingly divided between just two coalitions: the Russia-Iran-Assad alliance, in control of two-thirds of the country, including Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs, and the American-backed S.D.F., in control of the rest, including Raqqa. That raises the possibility of a negotiated peace, given that the Kurds and President Bashar al-Assad have never declared war on each other, and the United States and Russia have no interest in clashing militarily. The American government’s two declared goals in Syria are to defeat the Islamic State militarily and to usher Assad out through some kind of political transition. The first is nearly accomplished, but the second is off the table, according to the Russians, who are in a position to dictate what happens in Damascus. It might make sense for Trump to simply declare victory against the Islamic State and walk away, except for one thing: Iran.

Apart from Russia, Iran has been the Assad regime’s biggest backer since the war began. The Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force are spearheading a large contingent of Afghan and Pakistani mercenaries in Syria, and Iran-aligned Hezbollah has also thrown in with Assad’s Army. For the most part, the Shiite coalition’s war on the Sunni rebels has taken place west of the Euphrates, separate from the Kurds’ war with the Islamic State. But there have been isolated incidents of American forces shooting down Iranian drones, or bombing Shiite militiamen, especially around the al-Tanf border crossing with Iraq, where jsoc has an outpost to block Iranian access to the Baghdad-Damascus highway.

This past March, Trump announced that American personnel would be withdrawing from Syria “very soon.” In April, following the resignation and felony guilty plea of his first national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, and the firing of his replacement, H. R. McMaster, the office fell to John R. Bolton, an unrepentant architect of the Iraq War. Earlier in the year, Bolton had said on Fox News, “Our goal should be regime change in Iran.” A month after Bolton joined the White House, the Trump Administration reneged on the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions meant to strangle the Iranian economy. Brian Hook, a Bolton aide during the Bush Administration, is now Trump’s “special representative for Iran.” James F. Jeffrey, a diplomat who served as Bush’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, is now the “special representative for Syria engagement.” On September 6th, Jeffrey announced that Trump had agreed to keep U.S. troops in Syria indefinitely.“We are not in a hurry,” he said. On September 22nd, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani spoke at an Iran Uprising summit held in Manhattan. “I don’t know when we’re going to overthrow them,” he said. “It could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it’s going to happen.” On September 24th, Bolton confirmed to reporters in New York that American troops would not withdraw from Syria until all Iranian forces were gone, including Iranian “proxies and militias,” which could describe any number of armed groups, including the Assad regime itself. He went on to call Iran a “rogue regime,” and released a National Security Council document designating Iran the United States’ top counterterrorism priority. On September 28th, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ordered the evacuation of the American consulate in Basra, in the far south of Iraq, based on the questionable claim that it had come under rocket fire from Iranian militias. This redux of the Iraq War road show culminated on September 25th, when, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly—at the same lectern where Bush threatened Saddam Hussein, in 2002—Trump said, of Iran, “We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons.”

The belligerent talk from Washington might be a ploy to intimidate Tehran, a calculated move to turn Trump’s unpredictable nature into strategic leverage. But the Iranians appear willing to respond in kind. On October 1st, Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles across Iraq and struck an isis position in Deir Ezzor, not far from American troops. It was in retaliation for a terrorist attack on an Iranian military parade, but afterward, Bolton’s counterpart, Ali Shamkhani, issued a statement to the United States: “John Bolton said we should take you seriously. The commander of our aerospace forces took you seriously and landed missiles within three miles of you.” A similar incident could give Bolton and the others a pretext to convince Trump to launch a bombing campaign on Iranian military infrastructure. If Trump strikes Iran, the American forces would be engaged in a Middle East war zone that would span four contiguous countries: Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, stretching nineteen hundred miles from Damascus to Kabul (to say nothing of Yemen, Somalia, Libya, and Niger).

My host at the base in Syria, a genial State Department official, took me to a mess hall where we chose from a menu offering pizza, hamburgers, and fried chicken. “There’s no escape,” he quipped, glancing at a television screen where Trump was giving a speech. We took our food to go and ate in a conference room with plywood walls hung with whiteboards, an American flag, and satellite maps of Raqqa with key infrastructure highlighted in green. Most of our conversation was off the record, but he mostly stuck to the official script, updated with the most recent anti-Iranian talking points.

I pressed him on the legality of the U.S. mission. The post-9/11 statute that has provided a legal basis for a host of interventions in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and North Africa is a stretch when it comes to Syria, because the Islamic State didn’t exist in 2001 and is technically enemies with Al Qaeda. The government will argue its applicability because the two groups are so alike in ideology, but, absent a new act of Congress, on what legal basis could the armed forces confront Iran? He said something about the enemy of your enemy being your friend, which was confusing. Isn’t Shiite Iran, a perpetual foe of Sunni jihadist groups, also fighting the Islamic State? He smiled and fell back on the point that America has several objectives in Syria, the primary one being the Islamic State’s defeat.

Just inside the main gate of the base, I met five soldiers from the Mississippi National Guard. Their job was to “mirror” incoming vehicles for car bombs and check the drivers’ identification. They sat under a canopy of camouflage netting, their weapons locked but not loaded. A pair of sergeants named Jackson and Jones, wearing matching do-rags, were eating Pringles. Another sergeant, named Muñoz, and a young enlisted man called Ngo were drinking sodas, smoking cigarettes, and spitting on the ground. The sergeant in charge, a tall white guy whose name tape was covered by his body armor, told me that they belonged to the 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, and were doing a nine-month deployment in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. They had never been outside the wire and confessed to being fairly bored. I asked what they did to pass the time.

“Pretty much just stay in tune with YouTube,” Jackson said.

I asked if it felt weird being in Syria.

“I’ve kind of had this thing where I forget where I’m actually at,” Jones said. “It could be here or Kuwait or doing training in Texas or Mississippi, but it all looks the same and feels the same. Same buildings, same people, same vehicles, same equipment.”

“The only difference is the weather,” Jackson said.

“But sometimes,” Jones said, “I’ll wake up in the morning and be like, ‘Oh, shit, I’m in Syria.’ ”

• Read more:
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/is-the-trump-administration-pivoting-the-fight-in-syria-toward-a-war-with-iran?

 

by James O’Neill

The weeks before and since Christmas have seen and acceleration of efforts to achieve a peace settlement in Afghanistan. What is interesting is that the countries that have an important stake in there being a peaceful Afghanistan are driving this process: Russia, China, Pakistan and the Central Asian republics adjoining or proximate to Afghanistan.

Officials from these countries have met in Moscow and Astana and are due to meet again in Moscow on 5th February 2019. They are meeting with Taliban officials, Afghanistan Government representatives (although not in an official capacity) and in the case of the Moscow talks, a representative from the United States embassy.

The United States has had separate talks with Taliban officials in Qatar, and on 25 January announced an agreement in principle on two crucial and linked elements: that foreign forces would be withdrawn within 18 months from the signing of a ceasefire agreement; and a pledge by the Taliban that Afghanistan would not be used as a basis for attacks by Islamic extremists on the United States.

That latter element was at the insistence of the Americans. The reasons for it, from the American perspective, are historic. The Americans have claimed, ever since the attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001, that they were carried out by al Qaeda militants directed by Osama bin Laden from his base in Afghanistan.

That this claim was bereft of any evidence worthy of the name did not deter the United States and its coalition allies from attacking Afghanistan in October 2001 and remaining there to this day. We now know that the decision to invade Afghanistan was made in July 2001.

The link between “9/11” and the invasion of Afghanistan was not only a false one, but it ignored the actual history of US involvement with Afghanistan. An understanding of the history is important to an evaluation of whether the current negotiations for a settlement of the conflict are likely to succeed or not. It also explains the long-standing concerns of Russia, China and the “stans” of Central Asia.

The parallels with the Vietnam War are also instructive, bearing in mind that American involvement in that country began with its refusal to implement the terms of the 1954 Geneva peace accord, and not with the false flag operation of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1965.

Contrary to the official version which has been relentlessly propagated by the mainstream media, United States involvement in Afghanistan did not begin with the October 2001 invasion. Its origins can be placed at least as far back as 1979 under the auspices of Operation Cyclone.

That project, essentially controlled by the CIA and partially financed by Saudi Arabia, trained Mujihideen in Pakistan for infiltration into Afghanistan with the purpose of destabilizing the socialist government then in control of Kabul.

It was this destabilization that prompted the Soviet intervention in December 1979. President Taraki (until 14 September 1979) had requested Soviet assistance on several occasions, which President Brezhnev had refused. The media portrayal of Mujihideen being formed to resist the Soviet “invasion” is an inversion of historical reality.

The significance for the present day is that those terrorists trained in Pakistan were intended for infiltration not only into Afghanistan, but also China’s Xinjiang province (which has a significant Muslim population) and the “stans” of the then Soviet Union, which are overwhelmingly Muslim in religious affiliation.

Operation Cyclone’s objectives remain a key feature of the United States foreign policy in the region to the present day.

The geopolitical situation in the region has changed radically since the 1980s. The Soviet Union ceased to exist nearly 30 years ago. China has risen to be the world’s number 1 economy on a parity purchasing power basis. In the last five years China has embarked on a massive infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, that has a strong initial focus on Russia, Central Asia and Pakistan, with extensions to Europe, Africa and Latin America.

It is not by coincidence that the Shanghai Corporation Organisation, (SCO) which formed in 2001, with its original members being China, Russia and four of the Central Asian “stans” had a primary focus on security issues.

SCO’s full membership has expanded to incorporate India and Pakistan and with several associate members, including Iran and Turkey, and security remains a central focus although cooperation is now expanding into other areas such as trade, technology and military cooperation.

The American led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 created a refugee crisis that is barely acknowledged. There are currently about 1.5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and about 2.5 million in Iran. American support for the MEK terrorist group, which operates in Pakistan and Iran, is an ongoing major concern for those two countries.

The Taliban and the neighbouring countries therefore have legitimate reservations about the United States commitment to controlling terrorism in Afghanistan following a putative ceasefire or withdrawal of troops. The latter was also stated by President Trump in respect of Syria, but the opposite appears to be the case.

According to at least one recent report, United States troops were used to free ISIS fighters from a Taliban prison, killing all of the guards, and then ferrying the prisoners by helicopter to another destination.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sepko, has detailed the waste, embezzlement, fraud and abuse (including widespread civilian casualties) by the forces supported by the US. Mr Sepko commenced reporting in 2008 and nothing has improved in the 11 years since then. If anything, the situation has deteriorated.

The asinine claims by “coalition” members about transiting Afghanistan to a “more secure and peaceful future” collapse in the face of reports such as those from SIGAR. The UN Drug Agency also confirms that Afghanistan is the source of 93% of the word’s heroin.

That trafficking could not be sustained without the active involvement of US forces (and their allies). The role of illicit narcotics in financing US clandestine operations is well documented, although the western mainstream media refuse to discuss it.

Even the New York Times, in an op-ed on 1 January 2019 opined that Afghanistan was a lost cause from the point of view of America’s professed objectives such as a military victory and “leaving behind a self-sustaining democracy.” Afghanistan was described as a “vestigial limb of empire” and that it was “time to let it go.”

But democracy was never the real motive, any more than Afghanistan being responsible for “9/11”. Afghanistan’s resources, its geographical centrality viz a viz the Eurasian heartland, and the opportunity it provides to “contain” Russia and China and disrupt the China-Russia led Eurasian renaissance have always loomed larger in America’s calculations.

While the negotiations are therefore to be welcomed, it would probably require a helicopter rooftop evacuation, as in Saigon in 1975, to finally kick the Americans out.

James O’Neill is a barrister at law and geopolitical analyst. He may be contacted at [email protected]

 

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/02/05/reasons-to-be-cautious-about-us-with...

 

 

Read from top.

 

 

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/32305

 

By Simon Tisdall at The glorious Guardian

 

The approaching US withdrawal from Afghanistan is not an honourable retreat – it’s a capitulation. The best the Americans can hope for in exit talks with the Taliban, due to resume in Doha later this month, is a promise that coalition troops, unlike the British army led by General Elphinstone in 1842, will not depart under fire. After more than 17 years of conflict, with at least 38,000 civilians killed and millions more injured, traumatised or exiled, none of the long-term objectives set out by George W Bush following the 2001 invasion has been met. In short, the US has lost the war, and lost badly.

The al-Qaida terrorists who used Afghanistan as a base from which to launch the 9/11 attacks have not been wholly vanquished, as Bush promised. Their former leader, Osama bin Laden, is dead but the group, and likewise Islamic State, made territorial gains in Afghanistan last year, according to UN experts. It is unlikely that Taliban leaders could in future prevent jihadists once again using parts of the country as a terrorist safe haven – a key demand of American negotiators – even if they sincerely wanted to.

 

 

Read more crap:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/08/us-afghanistan-civ...

 

 

 

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The US has ruined Afghanistan. It can’t just walk away now?.... Bullshit. It has been officially at war in Afghanistan for 18 YEARS — THE LONGEST US WAR. Do you thing that staying longer will solve the problem? The USA has fucked up Afghanistan since the 1980s, by preventing the socialist government survival, what else can they fuck up there? Build a Christian Church tomorrow? The US needs the poppy crop.... shush...

Simon Tisdall lives in a rubbish heap. 

 

 

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/32305

US envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad expressed hope that a peace treaty might be concluded this year and said Russia played a “positive role” in the talks, as US generals who fought there conceded the war was lost long ago.

Speaking at the US Institute for Peace (USIP) on Friday, Khalilzad said it would be best for Afghanistan if a peace agreement is reached before the elections, which are scheduled for July. He expressed cautious optimism, but warned that there is “a lot of work” to do still.

“We want a peace agreement in Afghanistan. We want to see the war end. We want to see the war end this year,”said Khalilzad, who was appointed peace envoy by the Trump administration in September 2018, and has already met with Taliban officials to negotiate peace.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/451024-afghanistan-peace-russia-khalilzad/

 

 

 

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Representatives of China, Russia, and the United States held their 3rd consultation on the Afghan peace process in Beijing. China, Russia, and the United States welcomed Pakistan joining the consultation and believe that Pakistan can play an important role in facilitating peace in Afghanistan. Pakistan appreciated the constructive efforts by the China-Russia-US trilateral consultation on the Afghan peace process.

The four sides exchanged views on the current situation and joint efforts for realizing a political settlement to advance peace, stability, and prosperity of Afghanistan and the region. The four sides emphasized the importance of the trilateral consensus on the Afghan peace process reached in Moscow on April 25, 2019. All sides welcomed recent positive progress as the crucial parties concerned have advanced their talks and increased contacts with each other. All sides also welcomed intra-Afghan meetings held in Moscow and Doha.

The four sides called for relevant parties to grasp the opportunity for peace and immediately start intra-Afghan negotiations between the Taliban, Afghan government, and other Afghans. They re-affirmed negotiations should be “Afghan-led and Afghan-owned” and further agreed that these negotiations should produce a peace framework as soon as possible. This framework should guarantee the orderly and responsible transition of the security situation and detail an agreement on a future inclusive political arrangement acceptable to all Afghans.

The four sides encouraged all parties to take steps to reduce violence leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire that starts with intra-Afghan negotiations.

The four sides agreed to maintain the momentum of consultation, will invite other important stakeholders to join on the basis of the trilateral consensus agreed on April 25, 2019 in Moscow, and this broader group will meet when intra-Afghan negotiations start. The date and venue for the next consultation will be agreed upon through diplomatic channels.

 

Read more:

https://www.voltairenet.org/article207022.html

 

Translated from РУССКИЙ 

 

 

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The Trump administration has been trying to achieve a deal with the Taliban on the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

"I could win that war in a week. Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the earth... literally in 10 days," Trump said on Monday, as he met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan at the White House. 

"I don’t want to go that route,” the president added. "I don’t want to kill 10 million people." 

Mr Trump added that he expects Pakistan to help the US withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.

"We’ve been there for 19 years, and we’ve acted as policemen, not soldiers," he said.

Mr Khan expressed hope that within weeks the Afghan government would agree to sit down for direct talks with the Taliban.

In January, US peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said that an agreement with the Taliban on the withdrawal of US troops had been reached "in principle." But some outstanding issues remain to be resolved.

Trump's meeting with Mr Khan was intended to improve relations between the two countries which have been negatively impacted by the conflict in Afghanistan. Last week, the Trump administration and Congress repeatedly stressed that aid to Pakistan would be suspended unless the country showed concrete results in the fight against those terrorists who have strongholds on its soil.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201907221076324687-afghanistan-would-be-wi...

 

 

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‘Time to Get Out’: US Navy Seal Credited With Killing Bin Laden Supports Afghanistan Withdrawal
The October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was prompted by the terrorist attacks in New York and Virginia weeks earlier that killed thousands and were carried out by al-Qaeda operatives trained and directed in the country’s rugged mountains by Osama bin Laden.

Amid confirmation of the Pentagon plans to pare US troop levels in Afghanistan down to 2,500 soldiers by mid-January, retired Chief Petty Officer Robert O’Neill, the US Navy Seal credited with killing bin Laden, sounded off about his opposition to the US staying in the Central Asian country any longer.

“A lot of these arguments inside of the Pentagon … these guys yelling about what we’re doing, they haven’t won the war in 20 years, so maybe we should do something different,” O’Neill told Fox Business’ Neil Cavuto on Wednesday.

“It’s time to get out, especially of Afghanistan,” he flatly stated. However, the former operative didn’t seem to feel the US’ self-described mission of rebuilding Afghan society as democratic and amenable to Western values had been accomplished.

“We’ve been working in Afghanistan trying to train their local forces going on two decades now,” O’Neill said. “If they don’t have it by now, they’re never going to get it … They don’t have the infrastructure. They really don’t want the infrastructure.”

“Whether you like it or not, if you’re in a country for that long you’re an occupier,” he added. US forces have been engaged in Afghanistan since October 2001, when they invaded to overthrow the Taliban, which had provided shelter to al-Qaeda. In the 19 years since, the US and the new Afghan government it set up have fought a steady Taliban insurgency.

On May 2, 2011, O'Neill and a team of Seals succeeded in hunting down bin Laden at a compound across the border in Pakistan, and O’Neill has taken sole credit for the shot that killed the terrorist leader.

This past February, the US and Taliban reached a peace accord that would permit the US to pull its troops out. However, a separate peace deal between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which the Islamist militant group has long derided as an illegitimate US puppet, has yet to be achieved.

“If they come up with training sites that need to be bombed, we can bomb them,” O’Neill suggested. “We have three-letter agency people in different spots where they can monitor. It doesn’t take a bunch of Marines and infantrymen patrolling around very narrow roads and trying to build schools. It hasn’t worked before. It’s not going to work now.”
The former non-commissioned officer’s opinion resonates with that of US President Donald Trump, who has said he wants to bring all US troops in Afghanistan “home by Christmas.” However, it contrasts sharply with the advice of former Pentagon chief Mark Esper and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, as well as high-ranking US politicians like Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), all of whom have expressed skepticism at pulling out too many troops too fast.

However, O’Neill also had a few choice words about the US war in Iraq, which began in 2003 and ostensibly ended in 2011, although thousands of US troops remain in the country despite the Iraqi Parliament saying they should leave. Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller also said US troop levels in Iraq will decline under the new plan.

“Iraq was one of those things we shouldn’t have invaded, then we shouldn’t have left,” O’Neill said. “But it’s time for us to leave now.”
“They’re being run by Iran, and us keeping people on the ground is really not going to help that much,” he continued. “We should concentrate on bigger stuff, like what’s going to happen with China.”

Read more:
https://sputniknews.com/asia/202011191081207665-time-to-get-out-us-navy-...

Please note: Bin Laden and Al Qaeda AREN'T IRANIAN OUTFITS.  They are Sunnis working for the Saudis.

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