Admit Defeat and Leave Afghanistan

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer New US Defense Secretary Ash Carter says White House wants to make sure "progress sticks" despite promises that the occupying troops would be out of Afghanistan by 2016.

Date: 23 February 2015 - 20:09

News ID: ۱۱۲۹۹

His remarks set the stage for further occupation of Afghanistan, which has the potential to be even more destabilizing for the region and the world than Iraq and Syria. This is while Afghanistan needs no foreign power to settle its internal problems.

However, the illicit regimes are thoughtlessly convinced that they could still win the bogus war on terror if only they could get more power, more money, and more managerial discretion.

Among multiple layers of deception and newspeak, the new official Washington spin on the strategic quagmire in Afghanistan simply does not hold.

A recent study by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University has revealed that the war on terror has cost the US, so far, from $3.7 trillion to $4.4 trillion. And who is scooping the cash? The Industrial-Military Complex and its global network of western contractors and banks.

This is not about counter-insurgency or saving the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. It’s about the Pentagon’s full spectrum dominance: Maintaining the American empire of bases, controlling Afghanistan’s mineral resources and pivoting to Asia – read surrounding, bordering and keeping in check key competitors Russia and China.

The notion that the US government would spend a trillion dollar so far just to chase a few al-Qaeda militants in the mountains is nonsense. No wonder after the death of Osama bin Laden, the Taliban are still a threat!

So the drone war and the occupation, for all practical purposes, will continue, and this has nothing to do with fighting the bogus war on Terror. There is no Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan – most have become allies with the terrorist group of ISIL (America’s own creation) in Iraq and Syria.

This is while the people of Afghanistan want peace and prosperity not perpetual war and occupation. They are also the ones that can solve their internal problems and rebuild their nation – with a helping hand from their neighbors. Yet this could only happen if the foreign occupying troops leave. They only fuel the violent ideology of extremism.

Under the circumstances, the interventionists in Washington and their NATO allies should take note: Forget about your Strategic Partnership Agreement and "support” mission, which are never designed to save Afghanistan. Instead, be courageous, acknowledge defeat, and leave the long-suffering country to avoid further isolation and humiliation.