15 April 2021 — Moon of Alabama

The wickedness of the imperial U.S. vanguard is well expressed in an Atlantic piece by Eliot A. Cohen, the dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

On the U.S. exit from Afghanistan Cohen writes:

This is not the end of the war; it is merely the end of its direct American phase.

The war began more than four decades ago, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and its first American phase, in the 1980s, featured indirect United States intervention on behalf of the anti-Soviet mujahideen. The war will assuredly last well beyond the American exit. There will be no power-sharing, no reconciliation, no peace of the brave.

Those are lies. The war began in the mid of 1979 when the U.S. armed warlords who fought against the Afghan government:

In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in January 1998, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recounted that “according to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, kept secret until now, is quite different: Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.”

Cohen continues:

The war will grind on, with the edge going to the brutal fundamentalist warriors of the Taliban, who will torture and slaughter even as they repeal the advances made in women’s education and secularism in any form. But they will not have it all their own way. Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India, and the Central Asian republics have their own stakes in this war, and not all of them want to see an outright Taliban victory. So they will fund clients and proxies, as will, in all likelihood, the United States. And the people of Afghanistan will continue to suffer.

Those advances …

Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod – 8:18 UTC · Apr 14, 2021

Half a century ago, 70% of Afghan teachers and 40% of doctors were women. Today only 1-in-3 girls can read or go to school. But the myth that the US is helping women is so useful to neocon warmongers that it won’t die, no matter what the facts are.
Support the Tropes – How media language encourages the left to support wars, coups and intervention

After more than 40 years of U.S. meddling in Afghanistan with bad results, and after leaving the country defeated, one might think it would be reasonable for the U.S. to abstain from further meddling. But no, after his hypocritical bemoaning of the fate of Afghan women, Cohen is demanding more of it:

The United States will be able to pick sides in the conflict, a luxury it does not now have. For decades it has been subject to implicit and explicit Pakistani threats to choke the supply lines running to American forces in Afghanistan. Once the withdrawal eliminates Pakistan’s hold on its logistics, the United States can and should more freely support India’s efforts to protect its own interests in Afghanistan. The United States can similarly play off the Russians against the Chinese, who do not necessarily want the same things there.

India and Pakistan are nuclear armed neighbors who hate each other. So why not entice a little war between them. Just out of spite.

Plus the dreams of playing off Russia versus China. Luckily that is no longer possible.

But how much hate must one hold to forward such advice?