THE LIES, THE PROPAGANDA, THE AMERICAN MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
THE LIES, THE PROPAGANDA, THE AMERICAN MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
The war on terror to Nation Building Narrative - Crumbled all at once
“The Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped- as well equipped as any army in the world – and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable”
- U.S President, Joe Biden on the 8 July 2021
Almost 20 years ago, the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda and Taliban, as a response to horrific and brutal 9/11 terrorists’ attacks against the United States in 2001. Over the years we in the west were told that the country, Afghanistan, was making and had made significant progress in terms of education and women’s rights, we were told that Afghanistan now had a functioning democracy and although somewhat nascent, the U.S and its allies had helped build an Afghan Defence Force that could face off much of the threat posed by a potential Taliban insurgency. Even recently, on the 8 July 2021 in a briefing when the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, was asked if a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was inevitable, Biden responded with “the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped- as well equipped as any army in the world – and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable”. In the same briefing Biden also remarked “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war”.[1]
Today is the 17 August 2021, it has been over two days now that Taliban has taken over Afghanistan, including its capital Kabul- except the Afghan International Airport, which is supposedly under the control of U.S forces, however, “control” might not be the word one would use to describe the chaotic scenes that are emerging from Kabul’s airport, videos of which have been been widely shared on social media platforms, showing Afghan men in their traditional attire, in hundreds, running after a moving U.S Airforce Plane, attempting to board the plane en route to who knows where, subsequent video clips showed that at least two men who clung to the aircraft fell from an altitude that would make survival less likely.
“Urged them (Kabul regime) to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong”
- U.S President, Joe Biden on the 16 August 2021
As it happens in a conflict such as this, which spanned over two decades, there were multiple stakeholders in Afghan conflict, who sought to benefit from the end result. United States and the west obviously wanted to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a base for any future attacks against the U.S soil or the west. India was pandering to the regime installed in Kabul by America to expand its sphere of geo-political influence and also to prevent Pakistan from expanding its sphere of influence over Afghanistan. Pakistan along with the United States had been previously involved in Soviet-Afghan conflict and again got involved in the conflict under the umbrella of war on terror and by all accounts paid a price for these involvements over the years, so it was natural that it did not want to lose a neighbour like Afghanistan, for which it made “sacrifices”, to another neighbour like India, with which it mostly had strenuous relationship, since their partition in 1947. Iran, Afghanistan’s neighbour to the West had cooperated with the United States between 2001 and 2003 in toppling Al-Qaeda and Taliban, [2] because both of these ideologies at the time were hostile against Shia Muslims and Iran was and is a predominantly Shia country, however, by the end of the conflict, Iran seemed to have wanted nothing more than the U.S troops to leave Afghanistan. Meanwhile, China, Afghanistan’s neighbour to the northeast was watching the conflict play out carefully without any direct involvement.
Suffice to say, there were many interests at play in this modest size central Asian country, each seeking to shift the tide in their favour, but as we now know, the biggest winners that have come out of this conflict are Taliban - for obvious reasons, followed by Pakistan - as it seemed to have succeeded in warding off its archnemesis, India’s influence from the country, Russia and China seem optimistic.
The mood in the west is somber, in my opinion the people here might be waking up to the fact that the American Military Industrial Complex may just have lied all these years about the so-called progress that was being made in Afghanistan with their tax dollars. Those of us who have been following the conflict without following corporate mainstream media’s narrative, we knew or at least had the inkling that this conflict was not going anywhere and sooner or later America was going to withdraw due to enormous costs associated with occupation. The only beneficiaries at this stage of this occupation appear to be, the defence contractors, the weapons manufactures and the now in-exile puppet regime of Kabul-whose leader according to some reporting left the country with “bags full of cash”.
The losers on the other hand, appear to be many, for starters the U.S and its allies did not succeed in their attempts of “nation building” whatever that was supposed to be, then there is right-wing nationalist Indian government which put all its eggs in one basket and billions of dollars later finds itself isolated on world stage when it comes to Afghanistan, its media as per usual, is in a state of frenzy, at times screaming from their well-lit, air-conditioned studios, about how the United States failed people in Afghanistan, in my opinion these hyper-nationalist Indian media outlets were in a state of denial, wherein they thought their country was somehow, as it happens in a Bollywood movie, at the last minute will rescue Afghanistan, from its own people (i.e., Taliban) and now when they realised how insignificant their country’s role is when it comes to Afghanistan, they are blaming everyone, including Pakistan for Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, amidst an onslaught of warmongering by mainstream corporate American media, the U.S President, Biden addressed his nation, about the recent developments in Afghanistan and defended his decision to withdrawal of troops from the country and explained the reasons.[3] He also stated in this address that he “Urged them (Kabul regime) to engage in diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously he was wrong”.
To be fair to Biden, based on his record, he seemed to have been in favour of this withdrawal even when he was the Vice President under Obama. Some major players of the world seem to be doing their bit as it relates to this conflict, French President Macron vowed to stop Afghan refugee flow with “European mechanism”,[4] Turkey is building a wall on its border with Iran to stop the flow of Afghan refugees into its territory from Iran. Australia is acting like its helpless and cannot do much, whereas on the contrary the Australian Federal Government was being urged for quite some time by various opposition parties to do more when it comes to processing visas of Afghan interpreters who worked with Australian Troops in the country. Britain, unsurprisingly have a lot to say but words do not mean much without substance. Canada announced a generous number of refugees it was willing to take, but much of the details are amiss.
Taliban of 2021 is politically Savvy and they seem to be aware of the fact that their antics from 1990s are not going to do them any service, therefore, the world or at least the world leaders should jump on this opportunity and make lemonade from these lemons, they should negotiate formal ties with Taliban, because irrespective of whether the west recognises them, they are already in control of the country without much bloodshed and appear to have popular support amongst their Pashtun speaking citizenry
Against this backdrop, the world at large, at times purposely, seems to be ignoring the fact that Taliban since taking over the country, has issued statements that it would not impede women’s education, would allow women to continue to work, would not persecute minorities, would not persecute people who worked for former regime or who worked for foreign forces. Instead, social media and media coverage at large in the west is abuzz with people panicking and expecting monstrosities from Taliban.
In my honest opinion, I think this Taliban of 2021 is politically Savvy and they seem to be aware of the fact that their antics from 1990s are not going to do them any service, therefore, the world or at least the world leaders should jump on this opportunity and make lemonade from these lemons, they should negotiate formal ties with Taliban, because irrespective of whether the west recognises them, they are already in control of the country without much bloodshed and appear to have popular support amongst their Pashtun speaking citizenry. However, on the other hand, the Taliban, regardless of whether they are recognised as a legitimate government by international players - will need to transition to governance and administration mode rather quickly, they can’t successfully run a country with just ‘warriors who ousted a corrupt regime’ narrative.
No one knows for certain what future holds, but considering the fact that the west continues doing business with countries like Saudi Arabia- who some might argue shaped the ideology of Taliban, despite their human rights’ record in general, despite their history of human rights violations in Yemen, despite their murdering of Washington Post’s columnist Jamal Khashoggi, I remain optimistic, that the world leaders will find a diplomatic solution with Taliban, if not for the betterment of humanity then at least for the vast reserves of mineral wealth in Afghanistan.
References
[1]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-drawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/
[2]https://www.e-ir.info/2015/08/30/us-iran-special-relations-between-2001-and-2003-friends-or-foes/
[3]https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/16/remarks-by-president-biden-on-afghanistan/
[4]https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/france-vows-to-stop-afghan-refugee-flow-with-european-mechanism/2337377