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mat
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Straight out the trump book that plan of defence. What a **** he is.
Afghanistan
- Thread starter mammutly
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bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
They celebrated by driving APC's and Humvee's down the road ( something I am willing to bet any of us to master ) and there was one - possibly - Blackhawk flown over which I think shows where the abandoned equipment claims are.
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inbetween
Guest
The funny thing about this and politics in general is we have a go at Dominic Raab but where is the rest of Parliament? Where is the opposition on holding people like him to account?
The truth is they're all on holiday as well.
BobKowalski
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That was the function of the Select Committee yesterday. To hold Raab to account. Did a good job too.
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inbetween
Guest
What was achieved though? He was asked questions, he didn't answer them and he probably lied a few times, then they moved on. It's hardly ground breaking stuff and more akin to having a court trial with no jury where the judge is mates with the accused.
The challenge to the government on the pandemic has been exactly the same, why did you murder the guy, well I just did, okay thanks for that information let's ajourn for cakes.
I know there is nothing really they can do but that's perhaps the point. At least we aren't paying billions and billions to prop up this circus.... What's the next thing to go wrong? Who knows but it'll happen anyway and someone will be sat here in front of a committee again making excuses.
Citizen in Pakistan
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Everything hasn't been destroyed or could not have been, but aircrafts for the most part including missle defense system were disabled as suggested by various media reports
Dave Ewing's Back 'eader
Well-Known Member
Mrs Ewing has just uttered from the kitchen that Rochdale and Bolton have taken more refugees than the whole of the south east excluding London!
Dave Ewing's Back 'eader
Well-Known Member
They'll all go away and begin to 'learn the lessons'!
BobKowalski
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Because it is better than nothing.
If a governing party thinks it can get away with it, and the situation in Afghanistan barely moves the dial in public opinion of the Govt then, yes, it will make little difference other than to put the issue into the media. Whereas, Hancock had to go because it did move the dial in public opinion.
The danger to Raab is from within, as there have been a slew of insider leaks about what happened indicating that the level of confidence within the FO in Raab is zero.
The one thing the Govt has going for it is the ability to wage culture wars, cut benefits, and be mean to foreigners. Around 40% of the country like a Govt that acts like colossal dicks. Competence is optional.
Rascal
El Presidente
Before 9/11, Nafeez Ahmed warned of an impending invasion of Afghanistan to control a strategic pipeline. 20 years on, the return of the Taliban is the predictable legacy of America’s failed strategy
“The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis… There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.”These were the words of a US diplomat a year after the Taliban first conquered Kabul in 1996, as reported by the renowned Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in his book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.
US intelligence had in fact covertly supported the rise of the Taliban since around 1994, through to 2000. The policy has never been officially acknowledged, but I had extensively documented the evidence for it 20 years ago, about six months before the US-UK invasion of Afghanistan.
Even the school textbooks the Taliban uses to indoctrinate children into its militant ideology had been bankrolled to the tune of millions of dollars by the US Government. And they weren’t just paid for – the US Agency for International Development (USAID) commissioned the University of Nebraska in Omaha to draft and produce the textbooks, which were then smuggled into Afghanistan through networks built by the CIA with Pakistan’s military intelligence, the ISI.
The books were filled with violent images and extremist Islamist teachings. Theology justifying violent jihad was interspersed with “drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines”. The textbooks even extolled the heavenly rewards if children were to “pluck out the eyes of the Soviet enemy and cut off his legs”.
Forty-Two Years of Interference and Invasion
The Taliban was the outgrowth of a sequence of both overt and covert military interventions that had begun not 20 years ago – as the conventional pro- and anti-war discourse continues to incorrectly assume – but in 1979.Six months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that year, the US launched a covert operation to “bolster anti-Communist guerrillas in Afghanistan”, AFP reported in 1998.
“We did not push the Russians into invading, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would,” said Zbigniew Brzezenski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter. “That secret operation was an excellent idea. The effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap.”
The US and UK played the lead roles in channelling funds and arms to the newly formed ‘mujahideen’, which brought in up to a hundred thousand recruits from across the Muslim world. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were the most prominent among the network of Muslim states funnelling financial, military and logistical support into Afghanistan, coordinated by the CIA, Pentagon, MI6 and Ministry of Defence.
The Afghan war became the frontline in a new global Islamist movement supported by the West as a counterweight to Communist influence.
By 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in defeat, but the vacuum in Afghanistan left a country in a continued state of civil war as rival mujahideen groups turned on each other.
The end of the Cold War, however, did not lead to the end of the West’s flirtations with Islamist groups. In Afghanistan, the US continued to use the Pakistan-Saudi nexus to funnel support to the emerging Taliban movement throughout the 1990s.
‘This Was Their ResponsibilityTowards Us – Shame On Them’Says Afghanistan’s UN Youth Representative
George Llewelyn
The Covert Alliance with the Taliban
“An object of competition between the British and Russian empires in the 19th Century, Afghanistan became a source of controversy between the American and Soviet superpowers in the 20th,” wrote Elie Krakowski, a former advisor to assistant secretary of defence Richard Perle, who was directly involved in America’s Afghan policy, in a paper for the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in New Dehli published in 2000.“With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has become an important potential opening to the sea for the landlocked new states of Central Asia,” he said. “The presence of large oil and gas deposits in that area has attracted countries and multinational corporations… Because Afghanistan is a major strategic pivot what happens there affects the rest of the world.”
The Taliban was seen as a new vehicle for the US to acquire control of this strategic pivot, and thus a gateway to wider Central Asian resources that could potentially bypass Russian and Iranian influence.
“Between 1994 and 96 the US supported the Taliban politically through its allies Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, essentially because Washington viewed the Taliban as anti-Iranian, anti-Shia and pro-western,” Ahmed Rashid told Radio Azadi, the Afghan branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, on 15 April 2000. “Between 1995 and 97, US support was driven by the UNOCAL oil/gas pipeline project.”
Throughout the late 1990s, the notorious energy giant Enron was working with California-based US energy company Unocal to develop an oil and gas pipeline that would tap Caspian basin reserves, and carry oil and gas across Afghanistan, supplying Pakistan, India and potentially other markets.
The endeavour had the official blessing of Bill Clinton’s administration, and later the George W Bush administration, which held several meetings with Taliban representatives to negotiate terms for the pipeline deal throughout 2001. The hope was that the Taliban would receive formal recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan in return for permitting the installation of the pipeline.
Enron paid $400 million for a feasibility study for the pipeline, a large portion of which was siphoned-off as bribes to Taliban leaders, and even hired CIA agents to help facilitate.
“The UNOCAL project was based on the premise that the Taliban were going to conquer Afghanistan,” said Rashid. “This premise was fed to them by various countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and elements within the US administration. Essentially it was a premise that was very wrong, because it was based on conquest, and would therefore make it absolutely certain that not only would they not be able to build the pipeline, but they would never be able to have that kind of security in order to build the pipeline.”
War Plan Afghanistan
Indeed, when security relations deteriorated under Taliban rule throughout the summer of 2001, Bush administration officials scrambled to get the group to agree to a federal government in partnership with the Northern Alliance – a rival faction of warlords. The Taliban rejected the proposal. The Bush administration had anticipated this result, which is why – as I documented extensively in May that year – the US had begun preparing for an impending invasion of Afghanistan months before the 9/11 attacks.By August, desperate to pull off the deal, US officials threatened Taliban representatives with war if they refused to accept American terms. According to the then Pakistani Foreign Minister Niaz Naik, who had participated in the US-Taliban negotiations, US officials told him in the summer that they planned to invade Afghanistan in mid-October 2001.
‘Deserving’ or ‘Undeserving’ Refugees?Johnson and Patel’s Afghanistan Problem
Hardeep Matharu
No sooner had the war commenced than Bush’s Ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain, called Pakistani Oil Minister Usman Aminuddin to discuss “the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project,” according to the Frontier Post, a Pakistani English-language broadsheet. They reportedly agreed that the “project opens up new avenues of multi-dimensional regional cooperation particularly in view of the recent geopolitical developments in the region”.
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) trans-Afghan pipeline has received support from every US administration, including that of Donald Trump and Joe Biden – although they have been careful to attempt to foster more regional and local financing for the project.
That the Taliban would play a prominent role in Afghanistan’s governing structure at some point has increasingly been accepted, as US officials have repeatedly sought to negotiate with Taliban officials to reach a compromise federal arrangement that might bring the war to an end.
Biden’s Gambit and the Unravelling of Empire
Under Joe Biden, there were no direct contacts between the US and the Taliban, but some evidence of the continuation of a similar approach by proxy.Six months ago, a Taliban delegation paid a surprise visit to Turkmenistan where the group pledged support for the pipeline. “Signs point to the trip having been brokered by the US Government, which has long championed what is known as TAPI,” reported the Columbia University-based Eurasianet, which receives US and UK Government funding.
Despite the tacit backing, the Biden administration has provided no direct support for the project, its preference being for the Taliban to reach an accommodation with the US-UK-backed regime in Kabul. But the latter’s abrupt collapse as US troops has withdrawn has brought us full circle.
With the Taliban in power, the full legacy of the last 42 years of Western intervention has come to horrifying fruition, with the establishment of a new Islamic state structure in one of the most strategic regions in the world.
Russia and China have worked hard to build relations with the Islamist movement, and even Iran has forged an ‘enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend’ strategic partnership with the movement despite its rampant persecution of Hazara Shi’as, with credible reports that it is continuing during the current takeover.
The Taliban is keenly aware that its worldwide image of committing mass atrocities has deterred investors from wanting to invest in the TAPI project, but the group recognises TAPI’s significance as a potential source of lucrative revenue and international legitimacy. Yet, its track record speaks for itself. The Taliban was responsible for more than 45% of civilian casualties in 2020, though is certainly not the only guilty party. Forces supported by the US-UK-backed regime in Kabul were responsible for 25% of civilian casualties.
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When the Trump administration signed its peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, Amnesty International noted that it had “made no mention of human rights or of women”.
“Under the agreement, impunity was preserved for serious crimes under international law by all parties,” it said. “In September, the US administration cemented this position by imposing sanctions, including asset freezes, against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, who was poised to lead an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity by all parties to the conflict since 2003.”
The Biden administration had done nothing to reverse that appalling position, despite its promise to ‘review’ the agreement.
The return of the Taliban thus unveils the self-defeating hubris of the neo-colonial state-building ideology that had inspired the Afghan endeavour in the first place. Forty-two years after US forces had first covertly intervened in the country, the Islamist militant movement that emerged as a direct consequence of ongoing Western interference is resurgent amidst reports of it beating women trying to flee despite the Taliban’s promise of ‘safe passage’, and ordering women not to work.
In 2016, peace studies founder and futurist Professor Johan Galtung, who had accurately predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1980, told me that the “US empire” would begin to collapse around 2020. He had actually made the original prediction in the year 2000, arguing that this would happen within 25 years – but after the election of George W Bush, he revised his forecast five years forward due to Bush’s extreme militarism which he said would act as an accelerant. He said that, during this phase of decline, the US would experience a period of reactionary fascism.
The fall of the US-UK-backed client regime in Kabul has driven a nail in the coffin of the neo-conservative fantasy that once captured the corridors of power. But now the Afghan people will yet again pay the price as this delusion unravels before our eyes.
From the Byline Times.
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inbetween
Guest
The competence is optional thing is very true although to be honest I don't think it's about competence, it's purely about the fact that the government is seemingly busy doing other things that don't include running the country.
They're all quick to come back from their holidays to stab the government or to sit on select committees but when it comes to running things and stopping bad things from happening, where were they? The whole thing is just a self serving cesspit where party politics now overrides doing the job they were elected to do.
Labour are the same, they don't have policies, they're only policy is to win the party political battle and that's their daily job. On Afghanistan their policy was no different and they remained just as ignorant until a month ago when it became an issue to criticise the government upon.
My brother worked for his local MP a few years ago in admin and he told me all their staff did every single day was try to find the next photo opportunity or PR stabs against the opposition. They are not interested in constituents, running things or affecting the issues that they were elected to change.
Honestly Guy Fawkes had the right idea.
BobKowalski
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I disagree. You will have good MPs, bad MPs, and everything in between. There where MPs working hard on constituents worries over Afghanistan and trying to facilitate their evacuation.
Tugendhat is a Tory MP with an active interest in foreign affairs and Afghanistan in particular and led the Committee’s questioning of Raab.
Dismissing everyone ‘as the same’ just allows the dishonest and incompetent to rise because we refuse to exercise judgement over the choices before us.
BobKowalski
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The Economist giving Raab a kicking
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inbetween
Guest
There are indeed good MP's but we need MP's who will put their neck out to do something but they are exceptionally rare. Look at how things went for people like Chuka Umunna, Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke on Brexit who were all well known and supposedly decent enough MP's.
Tugendhat will be another, he will get the moral high ground but any will to challenge his own party will freeze him out of any hope of doing anything good. In a normal world you'd boot out Raab and put in Tugendhat but what are the chances of that happening? The crux of the state of it is you just cannot have a person in cabinet who challenges Boris no matter how competent they are and it would of been the same had Corbyn got in.
I know this is going off topic but I find it very frustrating because here we are with a completely avoidable or at least mitigatable issue but the party politics of today means we will not ask how we prevent it happening again but rather only whose fault it was. The person whose fault it was then gets sacked, sits on the backbenches for a bit and then quits politics to move into a cushty £10k a week consultancy job. Rinse and repeat.
Just you wait until the pandemic inquiry, it will be quite literally Labour vs the Tories for a few weeks, there will be blood everywhere and the newspapers will have their headlines. However, will the public get any tangible benefit like a better resourced NHS or pandemic preparedness plan out of it? Of course we won't. Millions will therefore be spent on a public enquiry that achieves the sum total of f*** all.
Look at the Grenfell inquiry, millions spent investigating it, lots of scandal etc but not a single person has gone to prison and 4 years later hundreds of towers are still coated in the same cladding that burnt Grenfell to the ground. That's how effective our political system really is.
BlueMoonAcrossThePond
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The USA is finally out of the Afghanistan mess. Thanks to Joe Biden.
At this point - the far right is going to pile on to increase/maintain ratings and income.
At this point - the far right is going to pile on to increase/maintain ratings and income.
It’s absolutely astonishing this sort of attitude.
It’s why I purposefully don’t hold political affiliations to particular people or parties.
You end up defending a clown like Biden.
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Exclusive: Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed Ghani to ‘change perception’
In the last call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Afghanistan counterpart before the Taliban seized control of the country, the leaders discussed military aid, political strategy and messaging tactics, but neither Biden nor Ashraf Ghani appeared aware of or prepared for the immediate...
www.reuters.com
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
BobKowalski
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It’s absolutely astonishing this sort of attitude.
It’s why I purposefully don’t hold political affiliations to particular people or parties.
You end up defending a clown like Biden.
Exclusive: Before Afghan collapse, Biden pressed Ghani to ‘change perception’
In the last call between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Afghanistan counterpart before the Taliban seized control of the country, the leaders discussed military aid, political strategy and messaging tactics, but neither Biden nor Ashraf Ghani appeared aware of or prepared for the immediate...
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”
Biden withdrew the US presence by 1st Sept in accordance with the peace deal negotiated by the US in February 2020. So, yes, Biden (and Trump) finally got the US out of Afghanistan.
The statement you cite is the US trying to paint a different picture to reality. The Taliban controlled 60% of the country and spent eighteen months doing deals to take over the rest.The conflict was lost and the US tried to do a PR job that no one is buying.
Cite an alternative strategy. More US troops? Prolonging the conflict for the next President to sort out? Breaking the peace deal? I have asked this question numerous times and have yet to get an answer.
They shouldn’t have left, that’s absolutely obvious and the evacuation process, if they must leave, has been handled atrociously anyway. He’s had 7+ months to sort out whatever Trump did prior, it’s no good continuously blaming Trump.
The US has thousands of troops all around the world and the mere presence of the US military remaining in Afghanistan would have deterred the Taliban.
The article I posted is proof Biden is a liar and no better than his predecessor in warping reality to save his own face… which is typical of politicians I know but not on this scale of calamity.
bluethrunthru
Well-Known Member
looks like he flew out to Crete on the 8th August - as I said for all his evasion it was bound to come out the clown