© AP Photo / Lefteris Pitarakis
Despite all evidence to the contrary, US Army General John Nicholson, commander of the US and NATO mission in Afghanistan, insists that the new US strategy is really working this time, the "Taliban cannot win", the war has "turned a corner" and thanks to the US, the Afghan forces are "on a path to win". If you think his optimism is justified, you need to realize that this is not the first time that this claim has been made. Far from it. The US military has been saying this exact same thing since at least 2004 and yet the bombs are still falling. Compare to it Russia's efficient job in Syria, which took only two years to clean the country of ISIS. Is the difference to do with will or the ability to do the job?
In the meantime, US-backed Afghan troops, police and officials regularly sexually abuse boys as their American friends turn a blind eye; there is an increase in opium production that feeds organized crime in Asia and Europe; suicide bombings routinely target Afghan servicemen; and US airstrikes terrorize, wound and murder Afghan civilians.
But perhaps chaos is just the way the US wants it. Otherwise how could the CIA run torture sites in a stable country and under the rule of law? Furthermore, how else could 'rogue elements' be unleashed against the US' competitors in the region?
In conversation with Sputnik, Mohammad Feisal Sami, deputy secretary of the upper house of the parliament of Afghanistan, warned that Daesh is seeking to relocate to his country as a way to spread into central Asia and Russia:
According to Sami since the activity of terrorist groups in Afghanistan has risen, drug cultivation has also increased dramatically. Most of the drugs are cultivated in the areas not controlled by the government.Interestingly, former Afghan president Hamid Karzai has remarked that ISIS is a US tool to destabilize the region. More recently, he told Al Jazeera that the US allowed ISIS to flourish in Afghanistan (much like it did in Syria):
The parliamentarian further said that the presence of Daesh in Afghanistan is aimed at pursuing several deadly agendas.
"They want to expand their influence in Afghanistan for 3 reasons. First, it is the desire to use the country's natural resources. Secondly, to increase the areas of drug cultivation and drug smuggling and thirdly, to penetrate the countries of Central Asia and get to the borders of Russia," Sami said.
According to the parliamentarian the terrorists are making big bucks through drug smuggling and then they use that money to buy weapons and ammunition.
"In my view under the full presence, surveillance, military, political, intelligence, Daesh [ISIL] has emerged," he said. "And for two years the Afghan people came, cried loud about their suffering, of violations. Nothing was done."Now that ISIS has been kicked out of Syria and Iraq, are the hordes gathering at the gates of Russia looking for vengeance? And if so, who are they getting their orders from and what is their real motivation? World domination of course!
Karzai said the US administration of President Donald Trump made ISIL as an excuse to drop a massive bomb in Afghanistan on April 2017.
"And the next day, Daesh takes the next district in Afghanistan".
"That proves to us that there is a hand in it and that hand can be no one else but them [the US] in Afghanistan."
Afghanistan has vast reserves of gas and oil and in 2010, US geologists discovered huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium. The USA would like to get its mitts on the resources, valued in the $trillions, as Gen. David Petraeus made very clear, at 47 seconds, in this 2010 interview while he was Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan:
But Afghanistan isn't only important because of its own natural resource wealth; it also potentially plays a critical role as a hub for the transport of Caspian sea oil and gas to China, Pakistan and India, three very populous developing countries that need a lot of energy. Afghanistan, which shares a small border with China, signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation in December 2011.
All of the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan border Afghanistan, and they all have considerable oil and gas reserves. China's 'One Belt One Road' initiative is currently in the process of transforming and interconnecting the Eurasian continent. This is a project that obviously requires free access to, or development of, a lot of energy resources, and Russia is also heavily invested in the plan. As such, Washington would, therefore, like to see it fail.
China's 'One Belt One Road' initiative
So the heavy US military presence in both Iraq and Afghanistan projected US power directly into two very strategic positions on the global 'chess board' with the intent of supplanting Russia/China-led and dominated Eurasian integration. If US imperialists decide that it is necessary to unleash a new 'ISIS' horde into the country in order to hold it, it's unlikely they will think twice.
For more details on the 'great game' being played out between major world powers, see Russian Actions in Syria Part of Radical Remaking of Global Order: A New World Awaits
Reader Comments
When the reality is that the Taliban ARE Afghani people, simply fighting the foreign invaders to their own lands. They therefore have a right to wage war against the invaders, they are not the enemy of the Afghani people, they ARE the Afghan people.
I suspect, should someone step in and begin to supply and sustain the Taliban in their fight to eject the invaders, I'd predict similar outcomes as in Syria.
Similar has been said about the so-called Viet Cong, most of whom, allegedly, had never even heard of 'communism' .