Trump’s Afghan Strategy: Forever War and Occupation

 

US President Donald Trump speaks during his address to the nation from Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, on August 21, 2017.
Trump warned Monday that a hasty exit from Afghanistan would create a “vacuum” that would benefit America’s jihadist foes, in a major policy address on his strategy in the 16-year conflict. AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump’s Monday address on Afghanistan didn’t surprise. What a difference an election makes!

In 2013, he tweeted: “We should have a speedy withdrawal” from Afghanistan. “Why should we keep wasting our money – rebuild the US!”

In 2014, he denounced Obama for “keeping our soldiers in Afghanistan for at least another year. He is losing two wars simultaneously.”

In 2015, he called US Middle East wars a “mess…a terrible mistake. We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place.”

“We had real brilliant thinkers that didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And it’s a mess. It’s a mess. And at this point, you probably have to (stay) because that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave. Just as I said that Iraq was going to collapse after we leave.”

He called for keeping 5,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan, asking: “Do I love anything about it? No. I think it’s important…that we keep a presence there…”

Days after his inauguration, he addressed Afghanistan, saying “(i)t is carnage. It’s horrible carnage,” suggesting it’s time to get out – before delegating warmaking authority to hawkish generals.

In 2016, he called war in Iraq “a terrible and a stupid thing. It’s going to destabilize the Middle East. And that’s exactly what it’s done. It’s been a disaster.”

He escalated the rape and destruction of Mosul on his watch, massacring thousands of civilians – Tal Afar his latest target, 50 miles west of Mosul, a city of 200,000 in 2014.

How many thousands of civilians will die before US terror-bombing ends? When will the rape of Raqqa end? How many more regional targets does he intend to ravage and destroy, defenseless civilians paying the greatest price?

Trump is hostage to America’s military/industrial complex like his predecessors. The Clinton co-presidency raped Yugoslavia, intermittently terror-bombed Iraq, among other high crimes.

GW Bush blustered about being a “wartime president.” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama bragged about waging war throughout his tenure – naked aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Trump continued what his predecessors began, escalating war in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, along with invading Somalia for the first time since withdrawal of US forces in 1994.

On Monday, he announced forever war and occupation of Afghanistan, escalating a long ago lost cause instead of responsibly ending what never should have been launched.

His remarks didn’t surprise, saying America “must seek an honorable and enduring outcome…a plan for victory.”

There’s nothing “honorable” about naked aggression, no possible “victory,” no “enduring outcome” as long as US and allied forces occupy the country.

Trump lied saying pullout “would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qaeda, would instantly fill…” America created and supports ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

The way to end their threat is by no longer arming, funding, training and directing their fighters. War in Afghanistan and other US theaters has nothing to do with combating terrorists used as imperial foot soldiers.

Trump’s address was warmed-over Bush/Cheney and Obama, along with war goddess Hillary as secretary of state.

Thousands more US troops will be deployed to Afghanistan, Trump not disclosing numbers or other details, wanting information about escalated war kept secret.

US forces coming home in body bags make disturbing headlines. Others wounded and disabled go unreported – for many their lives shattered, devastated by disabling injuries and/or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

For some, suicide ends their ordeal on active duty or after leaving the military.

A Monday article explained why America came to Afghanistan to stay. The country is strategically important, a Central Asia geopolitical prize close to Russia.

Controlling it is part of a plan to encircle Russia and China with US military bases – part of a longterm regime change strategy, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing their sovereign independence, eliminating the only nations standing in the way of unchallenged US global dominance.

Permanent occupation is planned to exploit regional oil, gas and other resources, including significant Afghan riches.

It’s to maintain country as the world’s largest opium producer, used to produce heroin, flooding world markets with it, the CIA and Wall Street profiting from it.

War in the country was lost years ago. America’s objective is permanent occupation, maintaining the illusion of governance in Kabul, illegitimate US-installed puppet rule over increasingly shrinking territory, lost to Taliban fighters wanting their country back, occupying forces out.

Trump intends continuing America’s longest war in modern times forever. War-profiteers demand it, benefitting hugely from endless slaughter, destruction and human misery.

Along with power-grabbing, that’s what imperial wars are all about – not to achieve peace and stability as falsely claimed.

Honest Empire: Trump Wants Afghan Mineral Wealth

(COMMONDREAMS) In a recent situation room meeting with generals and top national security advisors, President Donald Trump reportedly compared war policy to renovating a restaurant and complained that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to exploit Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

This is according to senior administration officials who leaked details of the “tense” meeting to NBC News.

Trump also complained that the U.S. is “losing” the war in Afghanistan—which is approaching its 16th year—and said he was contemplating firing Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of American forces in the country, who he has not met.

Here’s how NBC summarized the conversation:

“Over nearly two hours in the situation room, according to the officials, Trump complained about NATO allies, inquired about the United States getting a piece of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, and repeatedly said the top U.S. general there should be fired. He also startled the room with a story that seemed to compare their advice to that of a paid consultant who cost a tony New York restaurateur profits by offering bad advice.”

As Common Dreams reported last week, Trump has long been enticed by the prospect of plundering Afghanistan’s untapped mineral reserves. In the meeting with his national security advisors, NBC noted, Trump reiterated his wishes and fumed that China is “making money off of Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion in rare minerals while American troops are fighting the war.”

Trump also “expressed frustration that his advisers tasked with figuring out how the U.S. can help American businesses get rights to those minerals were moving too slowly,” NBCreported.

Commentators have in the past argued that Trump’s desire to exploit a war-torn country’s mineral reserves amounts to a longing for “colonialism.”

The response to leaked details of Trump’s meeting with military officials was of a similar tone.

By Jake Johnson / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

Afghanistan the World’s Largest Opium Producer

Farmers harvested a poppy field in the village of Bawri. Afghanistan’s opium cultivation increased for the third year in a row, according to a United Nations report. [Credit Abdul Khaleq/Associated Press]Opium is used to produce heroin and other illicit opioids.

In his book titled “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” Alfred McCoy documented CIA and US government complicity in drugs trafficking at the highest official levels.

It continues today in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central America, facilitating the global supply of illicit drugs.

Peter Dale Scott explained “(s)ince at least 1950 there has been a global CIA-drug connection operating more or less continuously” to this day.

“The global drug connection is not just a lateral connection between CIA field operatives and their drug-trafficking contacts.”

“It is more significantly a global financial complex of hot money uniting prominent business, financial and government, as well as underworld figures,” a sort of “indirect empire (operating alongside) existing government.”

Heroin and other illicit drugs produce hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenues – a US government-supported bonanza for corrupt regime officials in various countries, the CIA, organized crime and Western financial institutions, heavily involved in money laundering.

America is one of numerous countries involved, the most harmful and disturbing because of its imperial power and global reach, influencing or affecting virtually everything worldwide.

The CIA relies on involvement in drugs trafficking for a significant amount of its revenues.

Pre-9/11, Afghanistan under Taliban rule eradicated 94% of opium production according to UN estimates, one of various reasons why Bush/Cheney launched naked aggression on the country in October 2001.

One of the objectives was increasing opium production. Afghanistan was transformed into the world’s largest producer – at one point growing more than total global demand, now accounting for at least 90%.

Only a tiny fraction of what’s produced remains in-country, the rest supplying demand worldwide.

Illicit drugs trafficking is big business – complicit governments cashing in along with money-laundering Wall Street and other big banks, traffickers, and rogue agencies like the CIA.

As long as Afghanistan remains occupied under US-installed puppet rule, opium production will flourish, vitally needed eradication steps ruled out.

RT interviewed Layla Haidari, founder of a Kabul “Mother” organization, helping drug addicts.

“Every day, it is getting worse, not better,” she said. “It’s politics. The ministries, the politicians…want poppy cultivation to continue.

Corrupt Afghan officials like their counterparts elsewhere profit hugely from illicit trafficking, not about to give up a good thing.

Nor will the CIA and major Western banks end a lucrative source of revenues – the human cost of these drugs of no consequence in their decision-making.

NYT Editorial on Afghanistan Misses the Key Point

Perhaps US aggression in Afghanistan, along with destroying the cradle of civilization in Iraq, most stand as modern examples of the nation’s depravity.

Destroying Iraq began with the Carter administration instigating the 1980s Iran/Iraq War, followed by the 1991 Gulf War, years of genocidal sanctions, then Bush/Cheney’s war – continued by Obama and Trump.

Begun in October 2001, planned months in advance, Afghanistan is America’s longest war, lost long ago, ongoing endlessly with no possibility of resolving it militarily.

Yet hawkish generals running US warmaking intend sending thousands more US combat troops into its cauldron – a way to escalate conflict more than already.

Highlighting the ongoing war, Times editors said it’s now Trump’s – without explaining launching and continuing it reflect naked US aggression against a nation threatening no one, not America or any other country.

Criticizing Trump as America’s “delegator in chief” misses the broader issue – the key one in all US wars.

They’re all lawless against nonbelligerent nations – waged without Security Council authorization, flagrantly violating international, constitutional and US statute laws relating to warmaking.

Not a word from Times editors explaining what’s most important – the broadsheet supportive of all US imperial wars, instead of responsibly denouncing them.

America’s military presence is lawless and unacceptable, assuring endless conflict, perhaps for another 16 years or longer in Afghanistan.

The same goes for all other US war theaters – forever ones, feeding the nation’s military/industrial complex, spending countless trillions of dollars for mass slaughter and destruction, world peace considered anathema.

Times editors: Sending more US forces to Afghanistan “would…reverse the drawdown…Obama put in place and set a new policy of expanding (US) involvement in (the) war.”

In December 2009, Obama announced a surge of 30,000 additional US forces to Afghanistan – after pledging as a candidate to end the war entirely “and get our troops home.”

Repeatedly promising to end US military involvement in the country and Iraq were Big Lies – including his pledge to close Guantanamo within a year after taking office.

He later bragged about being at war throughout his entire tenure. GW Bush bragged, saying “I’m a wartime president.”

Trump promised one of the “greatest military buildups in American history.”

Times editors criticized him for the wrong reasons. Instead of demanding US imperial wars end, they questioned his policy on Afghanistan.

They support endless conflicts in all US war theaters. Asking “what to do about America’s longest war” ignores why it’s being waged in the first place – along with all other US wars of aggression.

Revving Up Lost Afghan War Coming?

America’s longest war was lost years ago, privately acknowledged, yet US combat operations continue, escalation likely coming.

According to Bloomberg, Trump’s military and national security advisors recommend deploying an additional 50,000 troops, “according to a classified US intelligence community assessment.”

It’s partly about propping up Kabul’s puppet regime, mostly to continue endless war, unwilling to acknowledge a long ago lost cause.

Surge, if ordered, assures greater mass slaughter and destruction than already, no possible chance of winning a lost war, just waging it endlessly.

According to Bloomberg, “(t)he new estimate from the intelligence community envisions significantly more US forces in Afghanistan than the current levels of around 8,400 US troops currently fighting there.”

“It is also more than the modest troop increase for Afghanistan of around 5,000 that was reported last week.”

DNI and National Security Council spokespersons declined to comment. Other US officials told Bloomberg Trump opposes escalating war impossible to win.

In his book titled “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam,” former defense secretary Robert McNamara said “we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.”

In 1965, he told Lyndon Johnson “I don’t believe they’re ever going to quit. And I don’t see…that we have any…plan for victory, militarily or diplomatically.”

His view was expressed at the onset of dramatic escalation, another decade before America’s humiliating April 1975 exit from the country – accomplishing nothing but mass slaughter, destruction and devastation, including thousands of US forces killed and maimed, their needs not properly cared for as vets.

John Pilger once called Vietnam “the lost illusion of the American cause,” Afghanistan under three US administrations no different.

How many more years of futile conflict will continue, how many US forces returning home in body bags, how much more devastation to the war-torn country?

Throughout its history, Afghanistan was the graveyard of empires, defeating would-be conquerors, foiling their ambitions, America’s lost war the latest example.

According to Bloomberg, National Security Advisor HR McMaster urged escalating war, saying (US-installed puppet) president Ashraf Ghani’s survival depends on it.

Unless Trump halts things, endless conflict will continue, Taliban fighters one day prevailing.

A humiliating US exit seems virtually certain one day, followed perhaps by another former defense secretary’s book, admitting US strategy was “terribly wrong” – a lesson neocons infesting Washington never learn.

Hundreds of Millions of US Tax Dollars Spent on Non-Existent Afghan Soldiers

January 12, 2017   |   admintam

(ANTIWAR) Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko is once again warning about the long-standing problems of corruption in Afghanistan, and the amount of US “reconstruction aid” disappearing down black holes over the course of the years. As always, the discussion came around to “ghost soldiers.”

Ghost soldiers are a phenomenon in which Afghan military commanders fill their ranks with fictional names and just keep the salaries, which since the salaries are paid pretty much exclusively by NATO and overwhelmingly by the US, has been a known tactic that the Afghan government has done nothing to prevent.

Sopko warned that the “ghost soldier” problem has expanded to include fictional police, teachers, and other government officials, and that all told the US taxpayers are paying the salaries of “tens of thousands” of Afghans who don’t actually exist, and will likely be doing so for years, potentially decades to come. Though exact figures are impossible to know, SIGAR said some $300 million in salaries are paid to “unverified” employees.

Individual Afghan government employee salaries are pretty small, particularly for military recruits, which has been a big reason the nation has struggled to fill the ranks with actual people. That commanders can pocket the difference just adds to the incentive to make up names and “pay” them.

This is a big reason why the Afghan military has struggled so mightily in fights with the Taliban as well, as their statistics on how many troops they have defending any given checkpoint or important city are wildly inaccurate, and they can find that the Taliban forces they thought they handily outnumbered are actually in a position to seize territory.

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This article (Hundreds of Millions of US Tax Dollars Spent on Non-Existent Afghan Soldiers) by Jason Ditz, originally appeared on AntiWar.com and was used with permission. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.