US war on terror or war of terror in Afghanistan

A suicide bomber killed 170 people and wounded another 200 after carrying out a terrorist attack outside Kabul International Airport. The tragic event unfolded as thousands of people tried to escape the country with mass evacuations underway, part of the overall withdrawal of US troops and allies from America's longest war.

In the days leading up to the tragic attack, Australia, Britain and the US all warned their citizens to stay away from the airport, saying that an attack was imminent.

Now some are asking, How come the US and its allies didn't do more to secure the perimeter, if they did indeed have prior knowledge of an impending attack? Others are asking why the US abandoned its biggest airbase, Bagram, just a month before. And could that have potentially contributed to such a security situation.

As part of the withdrawal agreement signed in February 2020 by US President Donald Trump, The United States was set to leave Afghanistan on May 1 2021, which It did not.

Instead US President Joe Biden pushed the deadline forward to September 11,the 20th anniversary of the 911 attacks, and then back to August 31, 2021.

Terrorist attacks in Kabul

A large explosion has ripped through Kabul’s international airport as evacuation efforts are underway, leaving over a hundred dead.

Washington said that in order to avoid a Saigon moment, a repeat of the humiliating withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, the US moved all evacuation operations from its embassy in Kabul to Kunduz International Airport. Air traffic control and all operations at the airport, were taken over by US forces effectively grinding all commercial flights to a halt.

Now some people like Eric Prince, the founder of the infamous Blackwater mercenary group which committed numerous war crimes in Iraq, are even trying to exploit the situation by offering people a ticket out of the country, but only if they pay an exorbitant $6,500 for a seat on a plane. The queues are long, the crowds are packed, People are desperate to get out of the country that the US claims it was building and bettering for 20 years.

And in the early hours of August 26, there were warnings from the British, American and Australians that a terrorist attack at Kabul airport was imminent. These warnings, unfortunately, turned out to be true and a suicide bomber blew themselves up in a crowd tragically killing 170 Afghans, 13 US Marines, and, wounding 200 people.

And even though the majority of victims are Afghans, you wouldn't really know that if you only pay attention to what Western media are saying and what can only be described as American arrogance.

Many headlines, tweets and messages of outrage and concern do not even mention the Afghans killed, who make up most of the victims.

These stories seem to completely omit this fact in their headlines focusing heavily instead on the US Marines, asking you to pray for them as if they are the only victims worth mentioning, and the Afghans aren't worth praying for.

We even had outrageous hateful messages such as the one calling for Afghan villages to be wiped off the face of the earth, one for every American life. It's always interesting; in moments like these to see the mask come off the people who claim the US is supposedly helping Afghanistan or occupying it for humanitarian reasons.

Unfortunately, this gruesome and barbaric attack is not an isolated incident. It is a tragic reminder of the entire war on Afghanistan, because not just the recent bombing at the airport but for the last 20 years many people have been killed, many people have been wounded and have suffered as a result of US imperialism.

Since the beginning of this year alone, in the last seven months, almost 1700 Afghans were killed, do you hear about any of that in the news, the mainstream media only seem to care about victims, when they are NATO troops or Western citizens, because their lives are somehow worth more than anyone else's.

Their entire coverage has focused primarily on how bad the withdrawal is so that you forget how bad the war is. They don't want to talk about Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the CIA kidnapping and torturing people, the executions, the war crimes by British American and Australian troops.

This is deeply embarrassing and shameful for them, and blows their entire narrative about nation building and counterterrorism out of the water, so instead they try to distract you with this withdrawal so you forget the war crimes.

All week, the Department of Defence has been posting pure propaganda, showing photographs of US soldiers giving water to Afghans or holding Afghan babies as if those same NATO troops weren't the ones who killed and maimed over 26,000 children between 2005 and 2019.

So it seems we are just supposed to forget about all these war crimes, and crimes against humanity and all the victims and refugees that resulted from over 20 years of war, because of some pictures of bottled water? Such a facile attempt to whitewash their crimes, almost immediately after this attack at Kabul Airport, General HR McMaster went on CNN for an interview, McMaster used to be the national security adviser under Trump, and he represents the typical war hawk Neo conservatives.

When McMaster went on CNN this is what he had to say:

I would not be surprised in any way if ISIS K was used, this attack, the Kabul attack network, was used as a cutout for the Taliban, so they can humiliate us on the way out and still continue to play us.

General HR McMaster, Former National Security Advisor

And if you know nothing about Afghanistan, and you know nothing about Daesh and the Taliban, then you might be inclined to believe this man who boasts a long career in the military and is on TV wearing a suit and a tie.

But his claim that the Taliban is somehow behind this attack is simply ridiculous and fantasy. The Taliban want to finish this war and for all four NATO invaders to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible.

The last thing on earth that the Taliban is going to do is execute a suicide mission, kill 13 Marines, not to mention dozens of their own people, hundreds of their own people, and risk prolonging the war, or escalating the conflict with the US, not to mention the very obvious fact that the Taliban and Daesh are mortal enemies.

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The international community has reacted to the Taliban takeover of the Afghan capital with some politicians, including those in the West, criticizing the outcome of their 20 year presence in Afghanistan.

So why on earth would they be working together, let alone on such an endeavour at this juncture in time? Again, this is such an absurd statement which only someone who knows nothing about the region could believe. this is very reminiscent of 2002 and 2003 and how the US lied about Saddam Hussein having ties to al Qaeda, even though the two were also sworn enemies. It was a complete fabrication, a lie, in order to implicate him in the war on terror and try and justify an invasion of Iraq.

In another example, just last year in the summer of 2020, the mainstream media claimed that Russia and Iran had placed bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan and were basically paying the Taliban thousands of dollars to kill US forces.

And of course, this story, turned out to be completely fake because that's what it is, it's a baseless lie. And nevertheless, it was successfully used by the politicians in Washington DC to prolong the war in Afghanistan, despite the fact that at the time, many people warned how improbable and fake the story sounded, not to mention that its sources were unnamed intelligence officials who needless to say have a never ending list of lies, but they have told for political gain.

So, perfectly aligned with these numerous past examples General McMaster goes on CNN and makes up an outrageous lie, claiming the Taliban and Daesh, who are enemies, work together to attack the US.

The only reason people like him say this, and the only reason networks like CNN allow him to say this, is because they hope to prolong the war, they love war. They love the ratings the money and the expansion of US hegemony and that's precisely why they do it.

What was your initial reaction to this very tragic event, this attack which took place at Kabul airport, you know, why did this happen, who stands to benefit from this?

Well, it's sad. It's tragic. It's outrageous in my view, the coverage by the corporate press has been even worse. Because, you know, for the last ever since August 15 when the Taliban, took over the country. The entire focus of the corporate media has been on the airport without any context, without any history, without background, without explanation, Without analysis, without depth, as if the airport events, you know, which were manufactured by the United States and its allies, as if they took place in a vacuum.

There's no talk about how the United States and its allies actually, deliberately, created this crisis. But also there's no explanation of the contribution direct contribution by the previous Afghan government of Mr Ghani and before that, Mr Karzi.

So while I feel very sorry for the people and the 170 plus people who were killed, and the hundreds who were injured, you know, I feel very sorry and very sad, both for the expatriates who were killed and maimed and also for the Afghans.

Amongst them were I'm sure some very important qualified, useful, people, but they are gone. And also, there's no question being asked, you know how and why this came about. The responsibility is directly with Washington, and its allies, because Washington has been meddling in Afghan affairs, ever since the 1970s.

While I should point out that Afghanistan had nothing to do with the crime and tragedy of 911, and yet the United States, in October of 2001 started assaulting, bombing, and occupying the country since August 15. So I think, you know, why do I feel sorry for the people... and they should be helped in every way.

But, one, we should hold the United States and their allies directly responsible, and two, we should provide for a contest, and three, what about the 34 million Afghans who will be left behind?

Let us suppose that the United States and its allies "rescue" maybe half a million Afghans right now at maximum. But there are 34 million people who are destined to stay there, And what about them, their lives? Because, as you know, the banks are closed so there's no money, the United States, you know, it has an embargo. So has the IMF, the World Bank, the government employees have not been paid from two to six months before the Taliban were even in the picture. So I think we need to put this in the larger context. And of course, the United States, Washington needs these scenes in trauma. So then Washington can feel good and charitable when accountable, but also so that it can it can justify to the American public, why and how it went in, and why and how it got out without consulting anybody, without considering the larger picture.

Dr Zaher Wahab, former Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan

Do you think that the United States or its NATO allies will exploit what just happened to send in more troops or start expanding the war on terror? Do you think that they may do what they did in Iraq and go back in under the guise of counterterrorism or even go into Syria?

Well there's you know the war continues, you know, President Biden himself said that the war over the horizon, as he put it, will continue and we know that the United States was bombing actually, and then two days yesterday you know the bombing of the two Daesh members in Nangehar, which is understandable. But I worry because Afghanistan is so strategically located, and because the United States needs Afghanistan for its resources, Its geostrategic position, and also its competition and rivalry with China, Iran and Russia, so I don't think that the United States, and it’s so called allies are going to ... leave Afghanistan alone.

So that's one thing, the other thing, of course, is that the United States invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, in my view, is not the first one it's not the last one, because it's called imperialism and new colonialism. We all know what the United States has done in Central America, in Chile, in Cuba, in Central America and Nicaragua, and in Asia and in Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon and other places so it's simply it's called, you know, the United States is determined, actually, to keep destabilizing nations and nation states who are trying to modernize themselves, and also, to delink themselves, their economies, societies and cultures from Western Orientalist Eurocentrism and Islamophobia, and the United States simply cannot allow this so I'm afraid the United States, directly or indirectly, will continue meddling in Afghan affairs and it's also interesting that someone in Washington said the other day that they should, the Taliban should also involve the members of the former government.

Now we all know how, what, Mr Ghani did in his team, and how much money they stole and he is living happily in Dubai, and it looks, you know, I think the Taliban are going to be facing several challenges.

One would be the members of the warlords and also the previous Afghan government, who have accumulated enormous amount of money; they can hire any number of mercenaries in matters of Taliban. And two internally, as you know, Afghanistan is a very divided country, it's a very heterogeneous society, and I'm afraid that there's going to be inter ethnic conflict, but also maybe the main conflict could be between the Pashtuns, the Taliban, The Pashtuns on the one hand, and the Tajik and Hazars on the other hand.

Dr Zaher Wahab, former Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan

We have had people like General McMaster going on CNN and saying that the Taliban allegedly worked with ISIS, with Daesh, to carry out this attack, how does that make sense considering the fact that they are sworn enemies?

We should all again, like if you're looking at Daesh or ISIS, and in this case of ISIS Khorrasan. Khorrasan is the former name for Afghanistan and in Pakistan. But we all know that ISIS and Daesh came into being with the support of the United States, in Iraq, the United States sort of provided for the emergence of Daesh. It was supporting it and Daesh was fighting for the United States in Syria. But I think we should not confuse the Taliban with others either with this Daesh or Tehrick-i-Taliban or the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or the Eastern Turkistan In China.

The Taliban are mostly Pashtuns, they are Afghans, they are indigenous to Afghanistan and they have no broader international agenda beyond the borders of the Afghanistan.

They have been on record, repeatedly saying we have no global agenda, and they should not be, I think it's wrong to sort of project them as co-terrorists, because these are different, they want to free their country.

If someone occupies your home I think you're entitled to defend your home and you shouldn't be named this or that. So, as far as we know there's been strong competition in fact I remember reading about skirmishes between the Taliban and also the Daesh Khorrasan in Langehar, Kundur, and the Nurestan province in the southeast of Afghanistan, because the two are directly opposite, you know the Daesh actually accuses the Taliban of being too soft on the West but also believing in negotiations in a peaceful settlement of conflict. When the Taliban are arguing that Daesh is too extreme, non discriminatory and has a global agenda, and are a terrorist organization.

So I don't think not only the Taliban would not cooperate with Daesh but in fact, Daesh would be a main challenge to the rule of Taliban because they are entirely different in their philosophy, goals, and objectives. The Daesh is very extreme, the Taliban are not extreme.

Dr Zaher Wahab, former Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan

Joe Biden said The US had to leave because it had succeeded in its counterterrorism mission, however, if one considers the events which unfolded during the last days of their presence that doesn't seem to be true.

Afghanistan, graveyard of empires, lives up to its name

The longest war in United States history, has come at a cost of over $2.2 trillion, with around three and a half thousand NATO troops killed and more importantly, over 50,000 Afghan civilians killed, a conservative estimate, has millions displaced or turned into refugees.

The Taliban have expressed a wish to establish a secure, safe, and stable Afghanistan. Do you think they're going to be able to succeed in that?

Well, I think. Yes, well, I should say to President Biden or the US government that they should not have been in Afghanistan in the first place and if they went and attacked  they should have left in 2002, because the objective, they said was then achieved, and then they should have left after they assassinated Bin laden in Pakistan; not in Afghanistan.

So I think it was time... Biden would like for his own sake because Biden is in deep, deep trouble, and so are all the Democrats, so they need to get as much credit for themselves as they can.

So, there were no, you know, there were no terrorists, because as I said, the Taliban themselves I think cannot afford to either, you know, harbour or support or accommodate terrorists because the Taliban again has a different trajectory and different objectives, that is, they want to form a nation, a nation state.

Dr Zaher Wahab, former Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan

They keep saying we need help; we need to have good relationship with the whole world. We need your assistance, we need this and we need that; they need credibility so the Taliban are in opposition.

But, Biden keeps saying and I think, in the way to deal with terrorism is a tactic. I mean, terrorism is not a group, it's not a party, it's not a government, it's not a room for wars, as such, but it's a crime. it's a crime that I think should be dealt with in other ways, through police work and intelligence which the United States has. Actually the Taliban have said that even they will work with the US government to solve these problems; they're on record.

If Washington would agree to this you know but Washington, as I said, for its own reasons is determined to destabilize, keep destabilizing Afghanistan because this is typical imperialism, neocolonialism, that would not allow countries to become self sufficient, especially countries that would not make its resources markets and labor and so forth open to Western imperialism, and that's the issue.

Dr Zaher Wahab, former Advisor to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan

In light of this tragic attack there are several important questions, uncomfortable questions, which will need to be answered.

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Where is Afghanistan

First, why did the United States move its evacuation operations to the International Airport, creating a security situation with packed crowds and increasing the likelihood that an attack would happen? Only last month, on July 1, The United States, suddenly left Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night, it cut off the power and left without even telling the Afghan security forces,its own allies, who were supposed to take over.

The Bagram Airbase is not only much more capable, but also much larger than Kabul International Airport, and if the US knew that thousands of people needed to be evacuated, then why did it abandon its biggest airbase in Afghanistan, a military secured airbase, and instead hijack Kabul's International Airport, which is a much smaller unprotected and far more dangerous place?

This doesn't make any sense at all.

Moreover, if the United States and its allies knew that a terrorist attack on the airport was imminent, why wasn't more done to secure the perimeter and prevent such a tragic turn of events?

The Taliban seized control while Americans and NATO allies fled

Despite US claims that they have been training and strengthening the country

How can US President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken claim that the US succeeded in its counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan when on the way out 170 people are killed because of a terrorist attack? It doesn't really sound like the counterterrorism mission was much of a success, and certainly not the "nation building" aspect of the whole debacle.

In response to the attack Biden maintained that the withdrawal would continue, however, he signaled that he'd authorize the US military to drop plans to strike assets and targets belonging to Daesh.

The following day it was reported that the US launched a drone strike killing two members of Daesh wounding another.

The United States, as is common knowledge, has a long history of supporting and arming terrorist groups whose objectives aligned with its foreign policy, for example in the 1980s, the US helped train and fund the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, some of whom went on later to form Al-Qaeda; even Hillary Clinton has admitted this.

And then 911 happens orchestrated by the same people that the US funded, and the US goes to war for two decades under the guise of a war on terror.

But it's a war of terror with millions killed, maimed or displaced in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, even though they had nothing to do with 911 attacks, the US bombed, Iraq and Afghanistan; it has bombed a grand total of 19 countries.

Meanwhile, the only winners left, the only people who benefited from all this are the weapons dealers.

Top US military firms spent $1bn on Afghan War lobbying, made $2tn: Report

The US Congress gave $2.02 trillion to the top five American weapons companies — Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — between 2001 and 2021.

The US spent trillions of dollars, where did all those US taxpayer dollars go? to line the pockets of the people who make jets, bombs and uniforms, how convenient for them.

Before the US armed the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, there was no al Qaeda, and before the US invaded Iraq and then Syria, there was no Daesh.

So when the US claimed it was leaving Iraq in 2011, and all of a sudden Daesh pops out of nowhere, No thanks to covert US support, and of course the power vacuum which resulted after the invasion in 2003. T

hen all of a sudden, conveniently, the US has a reason to go back into Iraq, and they're still there to this day a decade later.

The US entered Iraq again under the guise of counterterrorism. It claimed it will be conducting "limited strikes" as well inside of Syria to fight Daesh. So first of all, the US has no permission to be in Syria, and when they said limited strikes, we know how that turned out.

The US has troops on the ground inside Syria, illegally occupying the country, and also controlling 90% of Syria's oil. If that's their idea of limited strikes on Daesh, What does that mean that in the case of Daesh K in Afghanistan?

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Russia

So one day it's al Qaeda, then it's Al Qaeda in Iraq, and then it's Al Qaeda in Syria, then it is Daesh, now it's Daesh K.

The US has an extraordinary knack for finding new threats to deal with which magically keep the War on Terror going, the US Empire expanding, and, most important of all, money flowing into the pockets of the weapons dealers.

One can only hope that the tragedy which unfolded at Kabul airport is not exploited to try and prolong US presence in Afghanistan.

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