Geography Archives: Afghanistan

On March 7, the western powers huddled together in Paris for a restricted meeting on Taliban and the Afghanistan situation.

In no time after the retreat from Afghanistan, NATO is already immersed in another proxy war in Europe, and the alliance, at U.S. behest, is lurching toward the Arctic to counter Russia and China’s “big plans for the polar region.”

“The people of Afghanistan have been made to suffer doubly for a government they did not choose.”

A years-long investigation by BBC Panorama has revealed evidence of the repeated killings of unarmed Afghan civilians and detainees by the UK’s elite Special Air Service, and the attempted cover-up.

I find the best way to understand what happened in Xinjiang is to contrast it with Afghanistan.

While Afghanistan may finally be free of outside military occupation, Afghans are still suffering the deadly consequences of 40 years of U.S.-led subversion and war.

Nobody thinks of themselves as a warmonger, but then the spin machine gets going and before you know it they’re spouting the slogans they’ve been programmed to spout and waving the flags the flags they’ve been programmed to wave and consenting to whatever the imperial war machine wants in that moment.

Last Thursday, the Acting Foreign Minister of the Taliban interim government Amir Khan Muttaqi made a stunning remark to greet the visiting Chinese Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kabul when he said, “This is the most important high-level delegation received by Afghanistan.”

Two months ago (FAIR.org, 12/21/21), I noted the striking contrast between vocal media outrage—ostensibly grounded in concern for Afghan people—over President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and the relative silence over the growing humanitarian crisis in that country, which threatens millions with life-threatening levels of famine.

People in the United States must recognize the suffering their country continues inflicting in Afghanistan.

Last summer, after decades of killing Afghans in Afghanistan, the U.S. government decides to move its occupation forces out of that country.

“There is no socialist blueprint. If you think there is a socialist blueprint, then you will only be a utopian. The formation of economic policies has to be done with the collaboration of those on whose behalf you are going to change structures.”

Bittersweet is the passage of this year. There have been some immense victories and some catastrophic defeats, the most terrible being the failure of the Global North countries to adopt a democratic attitude towards confronting the COVID-19 pandemic and creating equitable access to key resources, from life-saving medical equipment to vaccines.

The U.S.-led mission fled the Afghanistan front of their so-called “war on terror,” leaving nothing but trash, extreme poverty and universal unemployment.

This long bloody madness has ended.

Can we learn to love peace at last?

The Taliban were a convenient target to satisfy a political lust for revenge for 9/11.

On Wednesday, September 1, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that the massacres of civilians committed by the US military in Afghanistan during 20 years of occupation and war should be fully investigated.

At the weekly briefing in Moscow on Thursday by the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova stated that Russia will consider recognising Afghanistan’s new authorities once an inclusive government is formed in the country.

Military occupations excite violent resistance throughout history. The U.S. has given up the fantasy of transforming Afghanistan. This removes Israel’s cover for its occupation and is generating panic among Israel’s friends.

In 2010, I was in Washington and arranged to interview the mastermind of Afghanistan’s modern era of suffering, Zbigniew Brzezinski. I quoted to him his autobiography in which he admitted that his grand scheme for drawing the Soviets into Afghanistan had created “a few stirred up Muslims”. “Do you have any regrets?” I asked. “Regrets! Regrets! What regrets?” – John Pilger