Could Afghanistan Break NATO?

[Disco_Destroyer]

same will be done with Libya

UK Controversial Afghanistan Plan


Link

[Disco_Destroyer]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=575681462459590

Timeline Photos
· USAID Afghanistan's photos · USAID Afghanistan's Page lol AID

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/Industry/article1147381.e ce

SAS man hunts Afghan gold

[Disco_Destroyer]

http://mom.gov.af/en/announcement/15333

Notice the lack of the JP Morgan connection and English Language for prospective dealers lol

[TonyGosling]

hmmm - this is what it's all about - and impossible in a democratic Afghanistan

The UK goes after a piece of the Afghan $1 trillion mining pie
Cecilia Jamasmie | March 7, 2013
http://www.mining.com/the-uk-goes-after-a-piece-of-the-afghan-1-trilli on-mining-pie-49774/
The UK government decided Wednesday to get a foot on the door to Afghanistan’s $1 trillion of untapped mineral wealth, by providing a three-year, $15 million (£10m) plan to back mining and oil and gas projects in the country.
Estimations from World Bank officials, reports Financial Times (subs. required), indicate the potential financial benefits from mining and oil deposits are more than alluring.
According to the newspaper’s sources, the likely royalties and taxes that could be generated in the Asian country could reach $3 trillion. They thins the income will be key to establishing financial stability in the Asian country following the withdrawal of NATO troops in late 2014.
Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is so vast that an internal Pentagon memo from 2010 —when most of the mineral and oil reserves were discovered— stated the country was posed to become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key element in the manufacture of high tech devices.
However, a mining law to attract foreign investment was recently rejected as it was considered “too generous” to Western commercial interests.
The lack of such regulations is jeopardizing several projects, such as the multi-billion dollar contract awarded to a consortium of Indian companies led by SAIL in 2011.
The group was set to mine the huge Hajigak iron ore deposit, considered one of the largest such deposits in the world at 1.8 billion tonnes.
Despite the setbacks, the Afghan government opened bids last year for vast copper and gold deposit, granting three licenses in early December to a consortium backed by City of London banker Ian Hannam, former BHP Billiton CEO Chip Goodyear and Poland’s multibillionaire Jan Kulczyk.
China has also moved to acquire mining interests in Afghanistan with state-owned Metallurgical Corp’s successful $3.4 billion bid to build a copper mine – and a $6 billion railway to go with it – that should enter production in 2014.
http://www.mining.com/the-uk-goes-after-a-piece-of-the-afghan-1-trilli on-mining-pie-49774/

[TonyGosling]

'1 million died' from Afghan heroin, drug production '40 times higher' since NATO op
Published time: April 03, 2013 10:17
http://rt.com/news/afghanistan-heroin-production-increased-266/
Heroin production in Afghanistan increased 40 times since NATO began its ‘War on Terror’ in 2001, the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service stated, adding that more than 1million people have died from Afghan heroin since then.
“Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began and over a trillion dollars has been invested into transnational organized crime from drug sales,” Viktor Ivanov said at the conference on the drug situation in Afghanistan.
Ivanov stressed that the main factor of instability in the war-torn country remains the prosperous heroin industry.
"Any impartial observer must admit the sad fact that the international community has failed to curb heroin production in Afghanistan since the start of NATO’s operation.”
According to his presentation at UN’s 56th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna on March 11, opium growth has increased by 18 per cent from 131,000 hectares to 154,000.
As the situation in Afghanistan changed with NATO withdrawing its troops, Russia along with Afghanistan and the international community must face the new reality and develop an efficient strategy to deal with the heroin problem, explained Ivanov.
Opium production has been central to Afghanistan’s economy ever since US and NATO forces invaded in October 2001. Just before the invasion Taliban had implemented a ban on poppy growing, declaring it to be anti-Islam, which lowered the overall production. But after the West’s involvement, production resumed and now the country produces some 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the great bulk of which ends up on the streets of Europe and Russia.


Image from Viktor Ivanov's presentation to UN’s 56th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna (March 2013)

US and NATO officials have been stuck in a Catch-22 fight against Afghan opium. At the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March, Ivanov stated that on the one hand, they are attempting to win the hearts and minds of the local population, which increasingly depends on the cultivation of opium poppy for their livelihood. On the other, they need to cut off finances to the Taliban insurgency, which is fueled by the sale of opium poppy to foreign markets.
About 15 per cent of Afghanistan’s Gross National Product depends on drug-related exports, which amounts business worth US$2.4 billion a year, according to UN 2012 figures.
Spokesman for Afghanistan's Counternarcotic Ministry Qayum Samir told Radio Free Europe on Monday that 157,000 hectares are being planted with poppies this spring, which is up by an estimated 3,000 hectares since last year. Samir argued that lack of security, lack of governance and widespread poverty are the reasons behind the increase in heroin production.
Moscow believes the simplest solutions are the most effective ones, and eradicating the country’s poppy fields is the key to solving the problem, underlined Viktor Ivanov.
But there is a big difference between how Russia and the US see the solution to the problem.
“Metaphorically speaking, instead of destroying the machine-gun nest, they suggest catching bullets flying from the machine-gun,” Ivanov explained. “We suggest eradicating the narcotic plants altogether. As long as there are opium poppy fields, there will be trafficking."
However, based on the US and NATO strategy, there seems no intention to get rid of all Afghan poppy fields, which is an inconsistency in the Western approach.
“The US together with the Colombian government eradicates 200,000 hectares of coca bushes a year. In Afghanistan, only 2,000 hectares of poppy fields are being eradicated – one 100th of that amount,” Ivanov pointed out.
And alongside the refusal to get rid of the poppies, there is the apparent interest of international banks in “dirty” money. Narcotics have nearly as large a share in total world trade as oil and gas, argued Ivanov in his presentation to UN.
The head of Russia’s drug enforcement suggested US and European banks tacitly welcome and “encourage” the inflow of drug money, he explained.
Gil Kerlikovske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the executive office of the US president, told RT that “We can intercept and seize tons of narcotics, we can make arrests of traffickers, but we really need to choke off the funds that supply this.”
Currently, Russia supports solutions proposing to improve social and institutional development in Afghanistan and discussing the problem at the international level.

http://www.bcfmradio.com/wp-content/Podcasts/20130405170001.mp3
http://www.bcfmradio.com/wp-content/Podcasts/20130405180001.mp3

[TonyGosling]

747 Cargo stalling in Afghanistan
The guy driving this vehcle sighs a bit but doesn't say a word as he watches the 747 slow, stall & fall out of the sky - a weirdly desensitized person

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lksDISvCmNI
A civilian cargo aircraft crashed at Bagram Air Field near the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday, killing all seven people aboard. The plane came down shortly after take-off and crashed within the boundaries of the US-run airbase, a NATO spokesperson at the base said. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the crash, but the coalition dismissed the claim as "false" in a statement to AP. The cause of the crash is being investigated by emergency crews, but no sign of insurgent activity in the area was spotted at the time, the statement added.

[TonyGosling]

"George H. W. Bush, the Vaseline president"
Operation Cyclone key to understanding Afghanistan and the war of terror
Here's CIAs most senior whistleblower John Stockwell talking all about it
Good bit starts here http://youtu.be/O5Lnnn9smmg?t=4m
CIA Operation CYCLONE, NWO, Afghanistan, Bush Senior, CIA Drug trafficking (1989)

Link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aKyHoZQg6Y
Former CIA case officer John R. Stockwell analyzes the CIA in relationship to George Bush and world affairs. Bush's history with the CIA is presented, and his attitudes toward handling affairs of state with covert actions abroad and curtailing dissent at home are assessed. John then reviews the CIA covert actions which are in progress around the world. He also evaluates the devastating effects which the CIA sponsored war in Afghanistan had on that country and its people, leaving the country in such a state of political turmoil and destruction that it is doomed to many years of further bloodshed.

Recorded February 16, 1989

[TonyGosling]

Bitter Lake by Adam Curtis

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1DkiyLH1dc
Published on 26 Jan 2015
Adam Curtis epic documentary, Bitter Lake, focuses it's attention on Afghanistan as case study for global politics over the last century. Wars, terrorism, economic collapse, recession, quantitative easing, the transfer of power from Governments to banks, the USA's relationship with Russia and power dynamics in the Middle East all form the fabric of a compelling narrative. The death of the Western world's ideology that good will win over evil. Not because evil will win, but because the over simplification good vs evil when describing global events has become an untenable with modern media and communications.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/ae14be85-3104-3c74-a9da- 85807434a38e

[TonyGosling]

That video was removed from YouTube by the BBC legal department you are forced to pay for this afternoon
Still here though - download it
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02gyz6b/adam-curtis-bitter-lake

But that’s because it is distinctive, genuinely different. It’s also worrying, beautiful, funny (really), ambitious, serious, gripping and very possibly important. I’m not saying everything now makes sense; there’s still confusion and uncertainty aplenty in this bitter lake up here. But Adam Curtis is at least taking a step back, to look at the modern world, then take it on. And make television like no one else does.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Video: Nicky Hager claims John Key signed off on deadly SAS raid in Afghanistan in retaliation to Kiwi soldier's death
5:35pmShare Source:1 NEWS
Investigative journalist Nicky Hager is calling for an independent inquiry into a raid conducted by the SAS in Afghanistan that he says was in retaliation to an NZ soldier's death.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/video-nicky-hager-claims-j ohn-key-signed-off-deadly-sas-raid-in-afghanistan-retaliation-kiwi-sol diers-death

From Dirty Politics to Hit and Run, Nicky Hager’s new book – so what’s it about?
Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson uncover truth about fatal Afghanistan raid involving Kiwi troops in new book.

Mr Hager released his new book in Wellington this afternoon, three years after the release of Dirty Politics shortly before the 2014 election.
The book is called Hit & Run - The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the meaning of honour and is co-written by war writer Jon Stephenson.
Advertisement

Mr Hager said this afternoon the book reveals a "dark and dirty secret" about the New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and is calling on an independent inquiry into the raid.

Nicky Hager reveals 'dark and dirty' secret of NZ SAS in Afghanistan
Hit and Run has been co-written with war writer Jon Stephenson.

He spoke to people who said there were breaches of international law and war crimes and the information was deliberately suppressed.
Mr Hager says former Prime Minister John Key signed off on a raid by the SAS in Afghanistan that was in retaliation to a NZ soldier's death.
He says six villagers were killed and 15 injured in the raid and that the SAS burnt up or blew up about a dozen houses in the town.

Mr Hager says the SAS covered it up and denied it when later asked about it and that no insurgents were killed or found.
He alleges it breached international law and may have been a war crime and that an apology is needed to villagers and the SAS needs to be accountable.
The New Zealand Defence Force says it stands by its statement made in April, 2011, after allegations of civilian casualties were made.

The New Zealand Defence Force stands by the statement it made dated 20 April 2011.
"These were investigated by a joint Afghan Ministry of Defence, Ministry of the Interior and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) assessment team, in accordance with ISAF procedures," the Defence said in a statement tonight.
"The investigation concluded that the allegations of civilian casualties were unfounded.
The NZDF is confident that New Zealand personnel conducted themselves in accordance with the applicable rules of engagement"
NZDF
"The NZDF does not undertake investigations or inquiries into the actions of forces from other nations.That was the role of the joint Afghan-ISAF investigation.
"The NZDF is confident that New Zealand personnel conducted themselves in accordance with the applicable rules of engagement."

Dirty Politics
Dirty Politics was based on internal communications between right wing Whale Oil blogger Cameron Slater and a network of National Party figures, provided to him by an anonymous hacker.

Last month Mr Hager filed a human rights claim against Westpac over a decision to give police his account details, without asking for a warrant, as part of a police investigation to identify the hacker.

In December, a court found a 10-hour search of Mr Hager's Wellington home in October 2014 was illegal because police had not told the court they were conducting a "media search" when they applied for a warrant.
A separate claim against the police is currently before the

03:19 Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson uncover truth about fatal Afghanistan raid involving Kiwi troops in new book.
Top level silence so far on Nicky Hager's claim SAS raids killed civilians in Afghanistan8:36pm

[TonyGosling]

Let’s play ‘Find The Keywords’
https://syrianobservatoryforhumanwrongs.wordpress.com/

Some random but connected articles. Today’s keywords are: monster, butcher, NATO, intervention, U.S., Clinton, Israeli, oops.

Good luck!

SERBIA

Forbes.com 26/9/2016:

“[Hillary] Clinton supported every one of the last seven U.S. military interventions abroad, plus two others we ended up fighting.” For instance, while First Lady she pushed for U.S. intervention in the Balkans—attacking the Bosnian Serbs and then Serbia. She was an enthusiastic war advocate, explaining: “I urged him [her husband] to bomb.” Alas, Bosnia remains badly divided while Kosovo has turned into a gangster state which, according to the New York Times, is “a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.” Oops.

Counterpunch 01/08/2016:

Slobodan Milosevic was vilified by the entire western press corps and virtually every politician in every NATO country. They called him “the Butcher of the Balkans.” They compared him to Hitler and accused him of genocide. They demonized him and made him out to be a bloodthirsty monster, and they used that false image to justify not only economic sanctions against Serbia, but also the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia and the Kosovo war.

Slobodan Milosevic had to spend the last five years of his life in prison defending himself and Serbia from bogus war crimes allegations over a war that they now admit he was trying to stop. The most serious charges that Milosevic faced, including the charge of genocide, were all in relation to Bosnia. Now, ten years after his death, they admit that he wasn’t guilty after all – oops.

IRAQ

Brookings Institution 10/4/2003:

The United States should not wish to keep (or pay for) a substantial part of its army in Iraq for the foreseeable future, especially given other military challenges that could suddenly appear somewhere else around the world. And it is implausible that we will be able to quickly draw down our current force presence, given the political vacuum in Iraq and the potential for ethnic strife, retributions, looting, or outside meddling in the country. Fresh troops will have to come from somewhere, and no organization is better placed to provide them than NATO.

Involving NATO in post-war Iraq would also help to legitimize the reconstruction process in the eyes of many around the world—making a UN mandate more likely and clearing the way for EU reconstruction funds. Having launched the war without explicit UN authority and against the will of much of world opinion, there is already much skepticism about American motives and little trust that Washington will take any but its own interests into account. Putting the Pentagon in sole charge of maintaining security, hunting weapons of mass destruction, and reconstituting an Iraqi army would only heighten that global skepticism, no matter how much confidence Americans might have in their own judgment or fairness. Putting the UN directly in charge of security in Iraq might be reassuring around the world, but as it showed in the Balkans, the UN is ill-prepared to play an effective security role in a potentially hostile environment. Giving a role to NATO—some of whose members have recently proven their willingness to stand up to Washington—would prove that Iraq was not a mere American protectorate, while still giving us confidence that security would be ensured.

LIBYA

Independent.ie 2/9/2011:

Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is a “monster” and the world will be better off without him, David Cameron said today.

The Prime Minister, speaking after co-hosting a major international summit to build support for the fledgling rebel administration, was optimistic about the prospects of a peaceful transition of power.

Mr Cameron said intervention to support the revolution was justified and in the UK’s national interest.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Gaddafi was a monster. He was responsible for appalling crimes, including crimes in this country and I think the world will be much better off without him.”

Mr Cameron said the UK had played a significant military role in the Nato-led operation to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddafi’s forces as he gave a trenchant defence of the intervention.

[…] He added: “We should be proud of what our forces did.”

Urban Times 16/5/2014:

Ten Things About Gaddafi They Don’t Want You To Know:

In Libya a home is considered a natural human right

In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum.

Education and medical treatment were all free

Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad.

Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project

The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great manmade river was designed to make water readily available to all Libyan’s across the entire country. It was funded by the Gaddafi government and it said that Gaddafi himself called it ”the eighth wonder of the world”.

It was free to start a farming business

If any Libyan wanted to start a farm they were given a house, farm land and live stock and seeds all free of charge.

A bursary was given to mothers with newborn babies

When a Libyan woman gave birth she was given 5000 (US dollars) for herself and the child.

Electricity was free

Electricity was free in Libya meaning absolutely no electric bills!

Cheap petrol

During Gaddafi’s reign the price of petrol in Libya was as low as 0.14 (US dollars) per litre.

Gaddafi raised the level of education

Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were literate. This figure was brought up to 87% with 25% earning university degrees.

Libya had its own state bank

Libya had its own State bank, which provided loans to citizens at zero percent interest by law and they had no external debt.

The gold dinar

Before the fall of Tripoli and his untimely demise, Gaddafi was trying to introduce a single African currency linked to gold. Following in the footsteps of the late great pioneer Marcus Garvey who first coined the term ”United States of Africa”. Gaddafi wanted to introduce and only trade in the African gold Dinar – a move which would have thrown the world economy into chaos.

The Dinar was widely opposed by the ‘elite’ of today’s society and who could blame them. African nations would have finally had the power to bring itself out of debt and poverty and only trade in this precious commodity. They would have been able to finally say ‘no’ to external exploitation and charge whatever they felt suitable for precious resources. It has been said that the gold Dinar was the real reason for the NATO led rebellion, in a bid to oust the outspoken leader.

SYRIA

WISTV.com 13/4/2018:

“I think (Syrian leader Bashar Al) Assad should be a legitimate target,” Graham said. “Take out his ability to wage war. Give the Syrian people a chance to breathe- and as to Russia, if you keep helping Assad, you do so at your own peril.”

Graham explained the Syrian strikes will have far-reaching effects and could help American foreign policy in the long term.

“Mr. President, you have the chance to change the world here…everybody’s looking at what you’re doing with Assad,” Graham said. “If you make him pay a big price, chances are North Korea’s going to take you more seriously. Russia and Iran are going to behave better. This is the most important decision you will make- is how to deal with Assad who has killed thousands of people through chemical weapons, who’s a butcher and needs to pay a heavy price.”

Philip Garaldi 19/12/2011:

“Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons from the late Muammar Gaddafi’s arsenals as well as volunteers from the Libyan Transitional National Council who are experienced in pitting local volunteers against trained soldiers, a skill they acquired confronting Gaddafi’s army. Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army, the armed wing of the Syrian National Council. French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause, enabling the fighters to avoid concentrations of Syrian soldiers.

CIA analysts are skeptical regarding the march to war. The frequently cited United Nations report that more than 3,500 civilians have been killed by Assad’s soldiers is based largely on rebel sources and is uncorroborated. The Agency has refused to sign off on the claims. Likewise, accounts of mass defections from the Syrian Army and pitched battles between deserters and loyal soldiers appear to be a fabrication, with few defections being confirmed independently. Syrian government claims that it is being assaulted by rebels who are armed, trained, and financed by foreign governments are more true than false.

In the United States, many friends of Israel are on the Assad regime-change bandwagon, believing that a weakened Syria, divided by civil war, will present no threat to Tel Aviv.”

Do you see a pattern here?

[TonyGosling]

UN Report: Afghan, NATO Forces Killing More Civilians Than Taliban
Almost 4,000 civilians killed in first halt of 2019
Jason Ditz Posted on July 30, 2019Categories NewsTags Afghanistan, Pentagon, Trump, UN
https://news.antiwar.com/2019/07/30/un-report-afghan-nato-forces-killi ng-more-civilians-than-taliban/

The United Nations has issued its latest report on the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, showing a major increase in civilians being killed in 2019. At least 3,812 civilians were killed or wounded in the first half of 2019.

Civilian casualties have been on the rise substantially over the course of the war, and this is just another troubling metric. The general increase may not even be as disturbing, however, as the fact that the Afghan government and US-led NATO forces are killing more civilians than the Taliban now.

The UN report showed the US and its allies killed 717 people, more than half of them in airstrikes. The Taliban killed 531. This showed a continued trend from the April report that covered the first quarter of the year.

Interestingly enough, the Pentagon issued a statement denying the report, saying that they work hard not to kill civilians, and their own data is more accurate than the UN report. The Pentagon, however, does not offer public reports on civilian deaths in Afghanistan.

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[TonyGosling]

Debate: US war in Afghanistan

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXEDMJWAe4E

Bombs for Peace? US drops more bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 than any other year

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umGOypxrk5g

US dropped record number of bombs on Afghanistan last year
Warplanes dropped 7,423 bombs and other munitions, the most since Pentagon began keeping track in 2006
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...

Julian Borger in Washington

Tue 28 Jan 2020 23.19 GMT

The US dropped more bombs on Afghanistan in 2019 than any other year since the Pentagon began keeping a tally in 2006, reflecting an apparent effort to force concessions from the Taliban at the negotiating table.

According to new figures released by US central command, US warplanes dropped 7,423 bombs and other munitions on Afghanistan, a nearly eightfold increase from 2015.

The increasing intensity of the air campaign has been accompanied by an increase in civilian casualties attributed to US forces. According to UN data, the US accounted for half the 1,149 civilian deaths attributed to pro-government forces in Afghanistan over the first three-quarters of 2019.

US lies and deception spelled out in Afghanistan papers' shocking detail

The Taliban and other insurgent groups were responsible for 1,207 civilian deaths, according to the same figures, as the Taliban also stepped up its attacks over the summer. In July last year, the UN recorded the highest number of civilian casualties in a single month since the organisation began documenting civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009.

The surge in bloodshed came as the US and Taliban were conducting sustained peace talks, which were led on the US side by the special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. Donald Trump abruptly called off the talks in September, blaming a Taliban suicide attack in Kabul, which killed an America soldier. The president claimed that Taliban leaders were on the point of coming to Camp David to sign an agreement, a claim the Taliban denied.

After making his first visit to Afghanistan in November, Trump declared he had reopened talks with the rebel group.

Male relatives comfort 12-year-old Bilal as he breaks down in tears in a Jalalabad Hospital bed beside his uncle Zarghun Shah, left, two days after they survived a US drone strike that killed their father and brother respectively.

“This is the US military mistakenly thinking that they’re somehow going to change the political dynamics by dropping more ordnance on Afghanistan,” said Laurel Miller, former US acting special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who is now director of the International Crisis Group’s Asia programme.

“The argument that is made in favor what they’re doing is that this will somehow change the political dynamics and in a way that makes the Taliban more likely to come to favorable terms at the peace table, but I have no expectation that this is going to have that kind of effect,” Miller said.

“It also poses the considerable risk of of blowback in the sense that inevitably this increase in use of air power results in an increase in civilian casualties.”

US air wars under Trump: increasingly indiscriminate, increasingly opaque

After the Obama administration tightened the criteria for carrying out aerial attacks, there was a significant decrease in bombing in 2015, but at the same time, the Taliban made territorial gains, leading to calls in Washington for the rules to be loosened again. Trump relaxed the criteria, giving more authority to commanders in the region to call in airstrikes, contributing to the surge in bombing.

“The US side is very explicitly hoping to use the ramped-up strikes to gain leverage in the ongoing talks with the Taliban,” said Frances Brown, who served as a senior national security council official in both the Obama and Trump administrations, and is now a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“The Taliban side is also using their own ramped-up violence to gain leverage; as a consequence, we saw record levels of overall violence in the third quarter of 2019, as both sides thought they were heading toward a preliminary agreement,” Brown said.

“The problem here is that the Trump administration lacks the clear political negotiating strategy,” she added. “The US special envoy made some hard-fought progress over the course of 2019, only to have the rug yanked out from under him by the president, with no apparent rationale. The talks restarted a few weeks ago, but the US has now undermined its own hand.”

[TonyGosling]

Wikileaks: Pakistan accused of helping Taliban in Afghanistan attacks

https://www.think.cz/english/book-reviews/the-trial-of-henry-kissinger -by-christopher-hitchens

Pakistan has armed, trained and coordinated Taliban and al-Qaeda attacks in Afghanistan, according to the military reports.

Western officials suspect Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency retains links with militants to gain influence in the region.
They are thought to have collaborated with terrorist leaders to order suicide bombings over the last six years.
Vehicles were allegedly filled with explosives in Pakistan before being driven across the border into Afghanistan, sometimes with ISI collusion.
John Kerry, the head of the Foreign Relations Committee in the US Senate, said the leak was worrying and had come at a "critical stage" for policy in the region.
"These documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent," he said.
"However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan."
Just last week, Hillary Clinton said she believes Osama bin Laden is still hidden inside Pakistan.
The documents detail a 2006 meeting with senior Taliban leaders in which Pakistani officials pushed for an attack on Maruf, a district of Kandahar that lies beside the Pakistan border. An offensive began later that year.
The files also link active and retired ISI officers to some of the conflict's most notorious leaders. According to the reports, in 2007, they sent also 1,000 motorbikes for use in suicide attacks.
The reports name former ISI chief General Hamid Gul as a go-between and claim he regularly met al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders to order suicide attacks.
In one classified "threat report", Gul is described ordering magnetic mines to be planted in snow on roads used by military vehicles.
"Gul's final comment to the three individuals was 'make the snow warm in Kabul' basically telling them to set Kabul aflame," the report said.
Another accuses him of meeting Arab "elders" in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt to plan a series of suicide bombings.
Yesterday Gen Gul angrily denied the allegations. "They are talking about a 74-year-old general who retired long ago and has nothing to do with this," he said.
"They are looking for some scapegoat and this is the sign of their defeat in Afghanistan."
Many of the reports are unverified, and Pakistanis have dismissed some of the more spectacular plots as fabrications. One claimed plans to assassinate government officials by disguising a remote-controlled bomb as a Koran, another involved poisoning beer supplies for Western troops in Afghanistan.
Much of the detail came from paid informers or Afghan intelligence officers – regarded as generally hostile to Islamabad.
A senior Pakistani intelligence source said simply releasing thousands of raw, unverified reports was misleading.
"Intelligence works in an entirely different fashion," he said. "We receive a preliminary report – which could come from anyone – and then you have to corroborate it from different, independent sources," he said. "A lot of this stuff will turn out to be untrue but we need weeks to check it."

[TonyGosling]

[TonyGosling]

[TonyGosling]

The Afghanistan Debacle, Zalmay Khalilzad and The Great Reset
By F. William Engdahl
19 August 2021
http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO19August2021.php

Much of the world is shocked by the apparent incompetence of the Biden Administration in the human and geopolitical catastrophe that is unfolding in Afghanistan. While Biden speaks out of both sides of his pre-scripted mouth, stating that everyone else is to blame than his decisions, then stating “the buck stops here,” only adds to the impression that the once sole-superpower is in terminal collapse. Could it be that this is all part of a long-term strategy to end the nation state in preparation for the global totalitarian model sometimes called the Great Reset by the Davos cabal? The 40 year history of the Afghan US war and the Afghani Pashtun who shaped the policy until today is revealing .

The airwaves of mainstream media across the globe are filled with questions of military incompetence or intelligence failure or both. It is worthwhile to examine the role of the Biden Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the State Department, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad. For the one figure who has shaped strategic US foreign policy since 1984 in the Administration of Bush Sr., and has been US Ambassador to both Afghanistan and to Iraq at key times during the US wars there, as well as the key figure in the present debacle, astonishingly little media attention has been given the 70-year old Afghan-born operative.

The Shadowy Khalilzad

Khalilzad, an ethnic Pashtun born and raised in Afghanistan until High School, is arguably the key actor in the unfolding Afghan drama, beginning with the time he was the architect of the radical transformation under Bush Jr of US strategic doctrine to “preventive wars.” He was involved in every step of the US policy in Afghanistan from CIA training Taliban Mujihideen Islamists (organization banned in Russia) in the 1980’s to the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to the Doha deal with the Taliban and the current disastrous collapse.

The May 8 1992 New York Times reported on a leaked Pentagon draft ,later called the Wolfowitz Doctrine after the Pentagon official under then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Paul Wolfowitz had been charged by Cheney with drafting a new US global military posture following the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to the Times leak, the document argued that, “the US must become the world’s single superpower and must take aggressive action to prevent competing nations—even allies such as Germany and Japan—from challenging US economic and military supremacy.” It further stated, “We must maintain the mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” It was de facto a declaration of unilateral imperialism.

At the time Zalmay Khalilzad worked under Wolfowitz as Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning, where he was tasked with drafting the new doctrine, working with Wolfowitz and outside consultants, including Khalilzad’s doctorate professor at the University of Chicago, RAND neo-conservative “godfather”, Alfred Wohlstetter. Wolfowitz had also studied at Chicago under Wohlstetter. This group became the core of the so-called neo-conservative warhawks. Khalilzad once said Cheney personally credited the young Afghani for the strategy document, allegedly telling Khalilzad, “You’ve discovered a new rationale for our role in the world.” That “discovery” was to transform America’s role in the world in a disastrous way.

Khalilzad’s highly controversial policy proposal, while it was later deleted from the published document by the Bush White House, reappeared a decade later as the Bush Doctrine under Bush Jr., also known as “preventive wars” and was used to justify the US invasions of Afghanistan and later Iraq.

Bush jr., whose Vice President was Dick Cheney, initiated the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001,urged on by his Afghan adviser, Zalmay Khalilzad, using the excuse that Osama bin Laden, the alleged architect of the 911 attacks, was hiding under protection of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, so the Taliban must be punished. In May, 2001, some four months before 911, Bush National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice had named Khalilzad as “Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Gulf, Southwest Asia and Other Regional Issues.” The “other regional issues” was to become huge.

Khalilzad had headed the Bush-Cheney Transition team for the Department of Defense. His influence twenty yearas ago was enormous and largely hidden from public view. Former Khalilzad boss Wolfowitz was Number Two at the Bush Jr. Pentagon and former Khalilzad consulting client, Don Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary.

Bush declared war against the Taliban regime for refusing to extradite the Saudi Jihadist Bin Laden. There was no UN role, no debate in Congress. It was the new US doctrine from Khalilzad and Wolfowitz and their neo-con cabal, that might makes right. Here began the 20-year US debacle in Afghanistan that never should have begun in any sane world of rule by law.

Taliban Origins

The origins of the Taliban come out of the CIA project, initiated by Carter Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1979, of recruiting and arming radical Islamists from Pakistan, Afghanistan and even Saudi Arabia, to wage irregular warfare against the Soviet Red Army then in Afghanistan. The CIA code-named it Operation Cyclone and it lasted ten years until the Red Army withdrew in 1989. A Saudi-CIA asset, Osama bin Laden, had been brought into Pakistan to work with the Pakistani ISI intelligence to draw money and Jihadists from the Arab states into the war. A significant number of radicalized Afghan Pashtun students called Taliban or “seekers” were recruited from radical madrasses, some in Pakistan where the ISI protected them. That CIA war became the longest and most costly CIA operation in its history. By 1984 Khalilzad was in the middle of it all, as US State Department Afghan specialist.

During the latter part of the 1980’s CIA war in Afghanistan, working with radical Islamist Mujahideen and Taliban mercenaries, Khalilzad emerged as the most influential US policy figure on Afghanistan. By 1988 Khalilzad had become the State Department’s “special advisor” on Afghanistan under former CIA head, George Bush Sr. In that post he was the one who dealt directly with the Mujahideen, including the Taliban.

By then he had become close to Jimmy Carter’s Afghan war strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Joining the US State Department in 1984 after teaching at Brzezinski’s Columbia University, Khalilzad became Executive Director of the influential Friends of Afghanistan lobby where Brzezinski and Kissinger associate, Lawrence Eagleburger were members. The Friends of Afghanistan, with USAID money, lobbied Congress for major US support to the Mujahideen. Khalilzad also successfully lobbied to give advanced US Stinger missiles to the Mujahideen. During this period Khalilzad had dealings with the Mujahideen, Taliban, Osama bin Laden and what came to become Al Qaeda (a terrorist organization banned in Russia).

In the George W. Bush Administration, Khalilzad was named Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan in early 2002, and was directly responsible for installing CIA asset Hamid Karzai as Afghan president in 2002.Hamid’s brother, warlord of the country’s largest opium province, Kandahar, was paid by the CIA at least since 2001. Khalilzad was clearly aware.

Khalilzad himself had reportedly been “selected” by CIA recruiter, Thomas E. Gouttierre, when Zalmay was an AFS exchange High School student in Ceres, California in the 1960s. Goutttierre headed the CIA-financed Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. That would explain his later career rise to extraordinary influence in US Afghan policy and beyond.

Notably, the disgraced current Afghan “President in flight,” Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the American-appointed “co-president” of Afghanistan, was a classmate of Khalilzad in the early 1970s as an undergraduate at the American University of Beirut, as were both of their future wives. Small world.

By 1996 following several years of civil war among the rival factions of the CIA-backed Mujahideen the Taliban, backed by Pakistan’s ISI, took control of Kabul. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan by 1996 was a direct consequence of Khalilzad’s arming and backing of the Mujahideen in the 1980s, including of Osama bin Laden. It was no accident or miscalculation. The CIA was in the business of weaponizing political Islam and Khalilzad was and is a key player in that. Khalilzad served as board member of the Afghanistan Foundation during the Clinton years, which advocated that the Taliban join forces with the anti-Taliban Mujahideen resistance groups.

During the end of the Clinton Presidency Khalilzad played a key role in shaping the military agenda of the next President with his role in the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), together with Cheney, Wolfowitz, Don Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and others who played key policy roles in the George W. Bush presidency. After the 911 attacks in 2001 Khalilzad orchestrated the Bush war against Taliban in Afghanistan and became Bush Envoy to Afghanistan. By November 2003 Khalilzad was US Ambassador to Afghanistan where his hand-picked President,Karzai, was installed. In February 2004 Ambassador Khalilzad welcomed US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and a Brigadier General Lloyd Austin in Kabul. Austin knows Khalilzad.

By December 2002 Bush had appointed Khalilzad to be Ambassador at Large for Free Iraqis to coordinate “preparations for a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.” Khalilzad and his PNAC neocon cronies had advocated a war to topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein since the late 1990s, well before 911. Two years later after the US war against Iraq began, Khalilzad was made Ambassador to Iraq. No one person has been more responsible for the rise of radical Islam terror groups from Taliban to Al Qaeda in those two countries than Zalmay Khalilzad.

No “Intelligence Failure”

In 2018 Khalilzad was recommended by US Secretary of State and former CIA head Mike Pompeo, to be US “Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation” for the Trump Administration. There was no hint of reconciliation from Khalilzad or Taliban. Here the wily Khalilzad entered into exclusive US-Taliban talks with their exiled envoys in Doha Qatar, the pro-Taliban Gulf state that houses leading Muslim Brotherhoods figures as well as Taliban. Qatar is reportedly a major money source for the Taliban.

Khalilzad successfully pressed Pakistan to release the co-founder of Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the key strategist of the Taliban victory in 1996, so that Baradar could lead the talks with Khalilzad in Doha. Then-President Trump reportedly approved that Khalilzad would negotiate in Doha solely with the Taliban, without the Kabul regime present. Baradar signed the February 2020 “deal” negotiated by Khalilzad and Taliban, the so-called Doha Agreement, in which the US and NATO agreed to a total withdrawal, but without any Taliban power-sharing agreement with the Kabul Ghani government, as Taliban refused to recognize them. Khalilzad told the New York Times of his deal that Taliban had committed to “do what is necessary that would prevent Afghanistan from ever becoming a platform for international terrorist groups or individuals.”

This was highly dubious and Khalilzad knew it, as Taliban and Al Qaeda have been intimately linked since the 1980s arrival of Osama bin Laden in Afghanstan. The current leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is reportedly alive and in Taliban safe haven inside Afghanistan. In short, this is the “deal” Khalilzad struck with the Taliban for then-President Trump, a deal which was accepted by the Biden Administration with only a minor change stating initially that September 11, 2021 be the date of final US pullout. Talk about symbolism.

The fall of Afghanistan was not the result of an “intelligence failure” by the CIA or a military mis-calculation by Secretary Austin and the Pentagon. Both knew, as did Khalilzad, what they were doing. When Austin approved the secret dark-of-night abandonment of the strategic Bagram Airbase, largest US military base in Afghanistan, on July 4, without notifying the Kabul government, it made clear to the US-trained Afghan army that the US would give them no more air cover. The US even stopped paying them months ago, collapsing morale further. This was no accident. It was all deliberate and Zalmay Khalilzad was central to all. In the 1980s his role helped create the 1996 Taliban takeover, in 2001 the Taliban destruction, and now in 2021 the Taliban restoration.

The real gainer in this insanity is the globalist agenda of so-called Davos “Great Reset” cabal who are using it to destroy the global influence of the United States, as Biden domestically destroys the economy from within. No nation, not Taiwan, not Japan, not Philippines, not India or even Australia, nor any other nation hoping for US protection in the future will be able to trust Washington to hold its promises. The fall of Kabul is the end of the American Century. Little wonder the China media is filled with schadenfreude and jubilation as the discuss Silk Road deals with the Taliban.





F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”

[TonyGosling]

161. LIVE - AFGHANISTAN - KISSINGER & IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S TYRANNY