Big Bangs Can Not End The War On Afghanistan – Admitting Defeat Will
from Moon of Alabama
5667 days after the beginning of the war between the mightiest military of the world and local Afghan farmers, Pentagon reporters were excited to report:
BREAKING: US drops largest non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan – GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, via @barbarastarrcnn
— Lara Seligman (@laraseligman) 13 April 2017
The U.S. generals demand, as they always do, more troops to “break the stalemate”. But there is no stalemate. The Afghan farmers are winning. The Taliban control more areas now than they ever controlled since 2002.
Dropping 22,000 lbs of high explosives on some shack will not change that trend. (Though it will drown the news that the U.S. military just bombed and killed 18 of its Kurdish proxy forces in Syria.)
GBU-43 prototype via Wikipedia
So what can the U.S. do in Afghanistan but blaming Russia and Iran on dubious grounds. Those countries – like China and other nearby countries – see the obviously coming U.S. retreat and talk with the Taliban to prepare for it.
The U.S. will have to and will leave and acknowledge that it joins the long lists of empires which tried to conquer Afghanistan and were defeated.
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According to Mohmand Kadir the area bombed is home to approximately 100,000 Pashtun/Afghan civilians in villages such as Assad Kheilo and Mohmandzai. The blast radius of this weapon is a couple of miles, one can only imagine the carnage as little evidence of slaughter would remain. The axis of occupying nations continue to flout international law, Article 50 and 51 with impunity. Under reported is the use of micro nukes, these 5th generation devices can be as small as a football with yields as low as 1 kiloton. Given uranium 235 (only used in nuclear weapons) has been confirmed in both Afghanistan and Iraq (source: Dr. Doug Rokke, ex-director of the Pentagon’s Depleted Uranium Project), what horrors are being unleashed by those claiming democracy? A disturbing report upon this can be found at;
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/04/13/trump-uses-nukes-vt-teams-rush-to-site-of-nuclear-bunker-buster-in-afghanistan/
The problem is that the US has already invested far too much money, military firepower and manpower in Afghanistan to let go that easily. To have the largest military forces in the world, to spend far more on its armed forces than the next big spenders combined, and then to admit defeat by a bunch of shepherds armed only with AK-47s, MANPADs and a knowledge of the terrain in which to hide would be the biggest humiliation imaginable. Also as long as Afghanistan is a treasure trove of rare earth minerals situated too close to China, the US will try its utmost to keep that away from the Chinese if it cannot have it.
Bernhard MoA surely knows the US doesn’t wage war just for the sake of maintaining an empire and that war is as useful for draining your enemies’ resources and creating chaos for them as well as your own. Call it the Samson option if you will.
Totally disagree Jen. You assume that the US leadership is both rational and purposeful. But there were no rational, purposeful ends in view then and there are none now. Remember Karl Rove’s remarks to the effect that the US is an empire, creating its own reality, i.e. making it up as it goes along.
The US isn’t particularly interested in winning or losing – their interest is in maintaining chaos so as to have continual military expense to support their only remaining industries: war and the drug trade.
I think the sectarian chaos and structural devastation US/NATO/allies produces is beneficial to neo colonial aims for other reasons that assist war and private interest profiteering. It fractures and divides countries both on the ground (territory) and the whole society and culture is degraded. A fractured and divided country with common roots lost in the infighting, economic chaos and basic needs shortages is a weak country, open to easy plunder, exploit and manipulate but most of all, unable to mount a real resistance.
The refugees from the devastation and horror are flooding Europe and now helping to destabilize it on top of increasing economic pressures. I am unsure and confused as to why our governments either do not see or ignore what is happening at home due to their domestic, especially economic and foreign policies. The future looks bleak with the current poor quality of politicians, advisers and bureaucrats we have today.
Precisely. Winning wars, even with the prospect of reconstruction profits, is still not as profitable as “blowing stuff up” – and it sells better to investors. As for the chaos, misery and slaughter? Not their problem. Barbarism at its finest.
It appears most of the ‘reconstructions’ are a scam and way to in debt the nation with egregious interest form IMF/World Bank loans that forces sale of public assets and resources. Most of the money appears to end up in CEO, shareholders, bankers and corrupt officials pockets.
The term ‘the US’ – in place of ‘the USA’ is a silent sign of the US of a global reach. But such ‘states’ are not united in will of true consent – but under the terrorizing deceit of a false will. Shall the false will of the deceiver be leaving Earth anytime soon? For the unconscious worship of its power knows not the act by which it ‘lives’.
The story of hate writ in lies held to pain and death. Perhaps each is brought to a recognition and a choice as to what they accept as moving and being them – for who can force a will upon another but they lose their own?
Why presume a desire to ‘end the war’ or ‘win it’?
All the world is but a stage for fools and such brash and bang is writ big; held aloft for all to see as the re-branding of an open tyranny that demands obedience in form only – and seeds the reaction by which to justify persisting in war and waste as the way the truth and the life of fear made flesh.
Britain too is unlikely to want to give up its involvement in the Afghan opium trade.
The Chinese still remember the Opium Wars.
Without US-Pakistan support, the Taliban would not be able to function.
All calculations relating to this area involve strict cost-benefit analyses.
Britain imposed an Act of Union on Ireland in the year 1800.
It still remains there – in the Northern part of Ireland.
It still retains control over the Falklands/Malvinas.
It still remains in control of Gibraltar.
Go figure that into any equations.
Why use the name of a nation or a people for the manipulators who set our minds to think thus?
Is it because the ‘chess game’ fascinates and frames as a grand soap of entertainment in place of a horror of helplessness?
Didn’t Barry pledge he was taking US troops out of Afghanistan?
It’s unlikely the U.S. will leave Afghanistan any time soon. The opium trade is simply too lucrative.
There are other reasons Afghanistan is still occupied and under attack. It is very rich in minerals, lithium being very important. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html
It has oil and gas and it is a vital geo strategic region for ‘containing’ and destabilizing Russia and perhaps hampering or at least watching closely China’s One Belt One Road project in Afghanistan and the region.