Farooq Tariq - The US occupation took only human lives: Taliban victory is not a sign of peace // The leader of the anti-Taliban resistance speaks out
The Taliban’s victory
is bad news for the progressives around the world. The victory is not
a sign of peace but a message of perpetual civil war. The establishment of
another religious fanatic state in South Asia will promote religious
sectarianism throughout the region… Soviet
forces stay lasted 10 years and failed. For 20 years, the US and NATO forces
remained in Afghanistan, their trained army dispersed without
a fight. The reason is clear: the Afghan people and soldiers had no ideological
basis to fight.
It is now evident that the US imperialism has lost all its human and financial investment in Afghanistan... What has been spent in Afghanistan in the name of development, ‘democracy’ and training of the armed forces for the last 20 years was unprecedented in the history of the world. According to the Cost of War Project, the United States poured $ 2226 billion into Afghanistan. This money could have provided basic education and health care all over the world. According to a 2020 report by the US Department of Defense, the United States spent $ 815.7 billion on war expenses. Pakistan’s total foreign debt is currently $ 116 billion, it is 7 times more than Pakistan’s total foreign debt. Despite doing so much, the Americans hasty pull out from Afghanistan and the collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government implies that all the US investment is now being handed over to the Taliban, without a single bullet fired.
The casualties in this war can be estimated from the fact that by April 2021, 47,235 civilians, 72 journalists and 444 aid workers had been killed in this war. 66,000 Afghan soldiers also fell victim to this war. The United States lost 2,442 troops and 20,666 were wounded. In addition, 3,800 private security personnel were killed. Soldiers from 40 countries were taking part in NATO’s Afghan forces. Of these, 1,144 soldiers were killed….
Many headlines over the past day have trumpeted the notion that the Afghan War is over. Yes, it's true the American troops are gone, but the country's decades long civil war continues. In fact, the war is entering a new phase in which the Taliban control almost all the country, but resistance to them is beginning to form. That resistance is led by Ahmad Massoud, 32, a graduate of Sandhurst, the British equivalent of West Point, who is the son of the legendary Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The elder Massoud was instrumental in forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1989 and he led the resistance to the Taliban the last time that they controlled much of Afghanistan, before the 9/11 attacks…
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/01/opinions/leader-anti-taliban-resistance-speaks-bergen/index.html
In pictures: Afghans mark Independence Day
as challenges to Taliban rule rise
Chris
Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine
Book review: AFGHANISTAN: ‘A SHOCKING INDICTMENT’
The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan: Interview with Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Vanessa Thorpe: MI 6, the
coup in Iran that changed the Middle East, and the cover-up
Victor Jara murder:
ex-military officers sentenced in Chile for 1973 death
Andrew Bacevich: High Crimes
and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century
Mohammed Hanif: The rest of
the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise
Donald Trump's gift to
America: Realizing we've never been a liberal democracy. By PAUL ROSENBERG
Zack Stanton: Violent
Christian Extremism in the USA
