Afghanistan

December 2024 Forums General discussion Afghanistan

Viewing 15 posts - 76 through 90 (of 115 total)
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  • #221217
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    The famous quote often used that JFK that he intended to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces probably is false.

    A journalist in 1966 used it in a newspaper article as hearsay that JFK supposedly said it to one of his officials.

    JFK replaced Dulles as the fall-guy for the fiasco and brought in a non-intelligence veteran to be director of the CIA.

    Dulles became a member of the Warren Commission, most likely to ensure that Operation Mongoose and other plans to assassinate Castro did not become public. He was most likely recommended by LBJ on the recommendation of RFK who also recommended Dulles to monitor the investigations of the Civil Rights murders in the South.

    Also to be noted is JFK had earlier experiences with CIA analyses in Laos.

    #221219
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    There are too many false theories about JFK, as well, he was not going to audit the Federal Reserve Bank either, (and the Fed is not a private corporation either) and he was not going to withdraw the troops from Vietnam. JFK used the CIA to conducts many international operations and the assassination of several world leaders. He came to an era when the USA was in decline and other world powers were emerging

    #221221
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    As to be expected MS, the right in America are expressing anti-Afghan refugee rhetoric

    https://apnews.com/article/immigration-151d588fd9f4b33b0a71b9a1226e589b

    #221332
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    It looks like the lives of the Afghans and Iraqi have not value. More than 40,000 Afghans were killed and more than 1 millions peoples from Iraq were killed and nobody said anything about it. The Afghans came from an egg like the Palestinians, apparently they are not humans, there was one person who worried more about 200 dogs left in Kabul than all the humans

    #221376
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    For the Taliban, the problems are just beginning

    First will be the foreign aid cuts that millions of Afghans relied upon

    Secondly will be the sanctions that will be imposed

    But what experts say will be the most serious problem inherited is the climate crisis.

    https://www.dw.com/en/amid-taliban-takeover-climate-change-could-drive-conflict/a-59025446

    “You have a country that is one of the most vulnerable to climate change and any implications as a result of that and without the needed capacities, you’re looking at a human catastrophe,” said Basir Feda, head of the Afghanistan unit at the Berlin-based Berghof Foundation, an NGO that promotes peacebuilding.

    Even under one of the UN’s more optimistic scenarios for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Afghanistan will likely continue to warm by at least a further 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. That level of warming would still further decrease the amount of snow available to feeds rivers, making water even scarcer.
    While drought will be even likelier, so too will extreme rainfall over short periods, increasing the chances of deadly landslides in the mountainous country. And years of war have robbed Afghanistan of the ability to build capacity to adapt and protect its population.

    “War is development in reverse,” said Brown. That means that 40 years of conflict have, for instance, also meant a chronic underinvestment in water infrastructure like dams and irrigation. Farmers used to rely on ancient irrigation systems known as “karez,” which avoided evaporation by transporting water underground from the mountains. Maintained by villages, some are still functional, but the vast majority were destroyed or fell into disrepair during the decades of war.

    Afghanistan will probably no longer feature in the headlines but the misery and pain and tragedies will not have disappeared.

    #221377
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    The Republican war-hawks have a new campaign to resume the Afghan war

    Biden is being told to bomb Afghanistan again until the Taliban return all the US-supplied weapons captured.

    https://www.oann.com/president-trump-calls-on-biden-to-demand-taliban-give-back-u-s-military-equipment/

    From a hazy memory, I have a vague recognition that after the Russians were routed the US had to buy back all their Stinger portable shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles which were so instrumental in the Mujahideen victory against the Russian helicopters.

    Somehow I don’t think the Taliban will be handing back all the equipment although some of it will be of no use to the sophistication and training and maintenance required. Those they will no doubt sell on the black market.

    #221390
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    All the pieces of equipment and weapons that were taken in Libya by the US mercenaries were used in Siria and Somalia.

    In the agreement signed by Trump and Pompeo that provision was not included, and to bomb Afghanistan again is to initiate another war. Wasn’t that the president that did not start any war? He bombed the Middle more than all the prior presidents.

    All the equipments and weapons left by the USA in Vietnam were sold in the black market, others were turned into scrap metal and some were kept by the Vietcong army.

    Before the USA leaving from Afghanistan many weapons and equipment were destroyed, the mercenary army trained by the USA was the one who left all the equipment and weapons to the Taliban, and probably, they are going to sell them in the black market

    #221438
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    There are rumors or speculations that the USA left all those weapons on purpose for the future expansion of the Taliban in the region and to stop the expansion of China and Russia in the Middle East

    #221445
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, whose agency said that up to 500,000 Afghans could flee by year-end, reiterated a call for borders to remain open and for more countries to share “this humanitarian responsibility” with Iran and Pakistan which already host 2.2 million Afghans.

    #221467
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Here is former 1960s student and Trotskyist leader Tariq Ali’s view of events in Afghanistan:

    Afghanistan war a huge ‘political and ideological failure’: Activist Tariq Ali

    Prominent activist and author Tariq Ali has told Al Jazeera it is time for Western powers to learn from their mistakes.

    “The first thing which has to be said very clearly and bluntly is that this has been a huge political and ideological defeat for the American empire, for NATO, and for the allies. It will bring hope on that level, to many others who are still struggling, like in Palestine and other parts of the world that this is possible. This can be done,” he said from London.

    Ali noted that trillions of dollars had been wasted in the war and the conflict only benefitted “the large corporations linked to the military-industrial complex”.

    #221468
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Tariq Ali is in fantasy land when he tries to relate the US/NATO rout to the Palestinian issue.

    Across the Sahel, the French-led US/NATO and African Union military alliance are in disarray and much like Afghanistan, corrupt governments hold only key capitals and cities.

    Is he promoting as national liberation ISIS Islamic fundamentalism?

    We stick true to our principled position, a plague on the lot of them.

    #221473
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/happened-us-military-equipment-left-230430164.html

    As Alan said in another post, most of the military equipments left by the USA the Taliban are not going to be able to use them due to type of technology used and the lack of training and most of them are linked to the software of the Pentagon, therefore, they are inoperable. Many equipments were destroyed with misiles and grenades, some explosion seen near the airports were grenade were to explode and destroy military equipments, many that were left are operational and can not be fixed, they are going to be part of the military museum of the Taliban. The services dogs were not left behind as an animal rescue groups said, the cages shown belonged to a rescue center from Afghanistan. Probably, those hardware are going to be sold in the black market, or sold as scrap metals. Some sophisticated airplanes were flown to some near countries by Afghan pilots who had USA permit to leave

    #221498
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    As many said, the Taliban must still fight for total control

    https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taliban-afghan-rebels-claim-heavy-casualties-fighting-over-valley-2021-09-02/

    Taliban forces and fighters loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud, fought in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley on Thursday, with each side saying it had inflicted heavy casualties in recent days of combat in the last province resisting Taliban rule… several thousand fighters from local militias and the remnants of army and special forces units have massed in Panjshir. Under Ahmad Massoud, son of a former Mujahideen commander, they have been holding out in the province, a steep valley that makes attacks from outside difficult. The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, a grouping of rebels, said it had full control of all passes and entrances

    #221502
    ALB
    Keymaster

    They are still essentially a gang of bandits led by mad mullahs. It will be interesting to see how they manage presiding over the operation of capitalism (which is a thousand years in advance of their ideology). Another form of government to add to republic, monarchy, dictatorship, bourgeois democracy as political forms that have failed to make the capitalist economy bend to their Will or benefit the majority.

    #221506
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Adam Buick, has a good point, the Taliban ideology is more backward and reactionary compared to capitalist ideology How are they going to adapt their ideology to the operation and governing of capitalism Are they going to establish a feudalist society? The only solution that they have is a brutal and reactionary dictatorship

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