America's Long Ago Lost Afghan War

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

The longest US war of aggression in modern times was lost years ago.

At the height of its power post-WW II, the US has been declining for decades, notably after state-sponsored 9/11.

It's the same dynamic that doomed earlier empires in history.

The US is in decline because of its imperial arrogance, endless wars against invented enemies, and unwillingness to change.

The long ago founded republic no longer exists.

It was replaced by the imperial state, lawless rule, military Keynesianism, ruinous military spending, money printing madness, and war on public health since last year — while vital homeland needs go begging.

According to Tass, Afghan Taliban fighters control around 65% of the country's territory.

US/NATO recruited and trained Afghan military forces are no match against them - many deserting, going home or fleeing cross-border for safety.

On August 12 and 13, Taliban fighters seized four more provincial capitals, including Herat and Kandahar.

On Thursday, US intelligence officials warned that they could take Kabul — the Afghan capital — in weeks or sooner.

On Saturday, Al Jazeera reported that their fighters captured most of northern, western and southern Afghanistan in less than three weeks.

Ahead of their assault on Kabul, US/NATO countries began evacuating their embassy staff.

US-installed puppet president Ashraf Ghani's days appear numbered.

Afghans fleeing other parts of the country for safety in Kabul won't find it as Taliban fighters advance on the city.

Thousands entering are unaided for lack of public services.

An "unfolding catastrophe" looms, Al Jazeera reported.

Kabul is virtually besieged ahead of an assault to take the city.

Taliban fighters already took control of the country's second and third largest cities, Kabul virtually certain to follow.

US regimes spent tens of billions of dollars to arm and equip the Afghan military.

According to Al Jazeera, Taliban fighters "seize(d) (US/NATO supplied) weapons caches," adding:

"Footage of Afghan soldiers surrendering in the northern city of Kunduz shows army vehicles loaded with heavy weapons and mounted with artillery guns in the hands of" Taliban fighters.

Kabul's international airport is flooded with Afghans and others wanting to flee the country as quickly as possible.

By pre-recorded statement, Ghani said his regime is taking "serious steps" to counter the Taliban's offensive.

According American University of Afghanistan's Victoria Fontan, Ghani may be preparing to step down, what the Taliban demand.

She believes an assault on the capital is imminent.

Al Jazeera's Rob McBride — reporting from Kabul — said the following:

There's a "lot of speculation that there might be some kind of change in leadership" in spite of Ghani's public brave face pretense.

It's at a time of rapid Taliban advances, their fighters facing little resistance.

The Biden regime is sending around 3,000 US troops to aid the withdrawal of its embassy staff.

Does a Saigon moment loom in the Afghan capital, a repeat of the Pentagon's humiliating April 30, 1975 Vietnam embassy rooftop exit after over a decade of aggression?

From 1965 – 1973, around eight million tons of bombs were used against Southeast Asia targets, threefold the tonnage in WW II.  

Millions were massacred, including from Agent Orange, sarin gas and other banned weapons.

In all its wars of aggression, US rules of engagement are anything goes.

Post-9/11, millions were killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere, mostly civilians in harm's way.

According to Gideon Polya's earlier global body count on avoidable deaths, US-led NATO and imperial partners were responsible "over 30 million Muslim deaths from violence or deprivation (including starvation and untreated diseases) in (their) War (OF) Terror" — in the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa and elsewhere.

In 2012, US Lt. Col Daniel Davis spent weeks in Afghanistan.

Assessing things firsthand on the ground, he spoke to US commanders, subordinates, low-ranking soldiers, Afghan security officials, civilians and village elders.

His no longer available unclassified report said the following:

"How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding."

"Senior ranking US military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the US Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable."

"This deception has damaged America's credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan."

His more damning classified report said:

"If the public had access to these classified reports, they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes."

"It would be illegal for me to discuss, use, or cite classified material in an open venue, and thus I will not do so."

He explained that insurgents control "virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a US or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base."

Everywhere he visited, "the tactical situation was bad to abysmal."

Afghanistan's government can't "provide for the basic needs of the people." 

At times, local security forces collude with insurgents.

He "witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level."

Yet endless war continued with no prospect of turning defeat into triumph — while maintaining the illusion of a military solution in the country.

US Pentagon troops are being withdrawn.

Remaining are covert special forces, CIA operatives, other US dark forces and so-called private military contractors (PMCs) — unless the Taliban are able to drive them out.

As earlier explained, the country is strategically located and resource-rich.

The US also wants oil and gas pipelines constructed across its territory.

It wants it used as part of a plan to encircle Russia and China, along with maintaining opium production used for heroin.

In the 1990s, the Taliban eliminated it, what's likely ahead with them in control.

Afghanistan has also been a bonanza for money-laundering Western banks and the CIA — profiting greatly from drugs trafficking as a revenue source.

In his book, titled "Freedom Next Time," John Pilger explained that "(t)hrough all the humanitarian crises in living memory, no country has been abused and suffered more, and none has been helped less than Afghanistan" and its people.

Whatever the outcome of Washington's longest modern-day war of aggression, their misery is likely to continue — especially as long as US dark forces intend no end of exploiting the country, even with Pentagon troops withdrawn.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

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