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So, any opinions on what happens in Afghanistan?

There was 'the Afghan trap': The US trained, equipped and radicalized the Mujaheddin to have them carry out terrorism, to lure the Soviets into invading Afghanistan and give them their 'Vietnam'. (Fun fact: Osama bin Laden, who was later so hard to find, was trained by US specialists how to not be found.)

After the Soviets retreated, there was 'the big betrayal' by the US: they didn't care what happens to Afghanistan any longer and just took off. Due to the power vacuum civil war ensued; half of Kabul was flattened, a third of the population killed. (Fun fact: some of the warlords involved formed the 'Northern Alliance'.)

The Pakistanis and Saudis build up the Taliban. After 9/11 the US, under George W. Bush, made unacceptable demands from the Taliban to have an excuse to invade. The known mass murderers from the 'Northern Alliance' were the allies, the oil manager Karsai is made the first president. The (US) occupation was brutal and corrupt, favoring brutal and corrupt warlords who are considered to be 'our guys' by the US. (The war crimes, like torture and random killings, were made public for example by wikileaks.) The majority of the population remains in misery. Imagine how bad it was, that now the majority of Afghans consider the Taliban to be more acceptable then what 'the West' had given them.

In Germany everyone who doesn't say 'Hooray!' to NATO is considered to be an extremist and/or idiot. If I look at the countries where the US/NATO has bombed/invaded in the last 20 years, what methods were used, what the situation there is now, and where the majority of our refugees is coming from, I really can't bring myself to say 'Hooray!' to NATO.

 

'Must listen':

https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2021/august/20/good-riddance-to-the-war-on-terror-lowkey-on-afghanistan

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Afghanistan, in the US, is a hot topic. From my point of view, the US should never have gone into Afghanistan or Iraq, but that is "water under the bridge". The US withdrawal that was just completed is/was a complete disaster. As such, it is a reflection of the total incompetence of the Biden administration.

Biden misleadingly claimed that he would "heal the soul of America" and that he would restore US prestige on the world stage. Instead Biden has fostered divisive racism and he has apparently dissed US allies based on the manner in which he withdrew US forces from Afghanistan. China even rightfully tossed Biden racist remarks back at US diplomats when they held a meeting in Anchorage, AK in March 2021. Instead of restoring US prestige, Biden is giving the US a "black eye".

I've been reading second hand accounts that European leaders are less than pleased with Biden's leadership. I would be interested in knowing what the perception is from Europe.

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1 hour ago, Thales said:

Afghanistan, in the US, is a hot topic. From my point of view, the US should never have gone into Afghanistan or Iraq, but that is "water under the bridge". The US withdrawal that was just completed is/was a complete disaster. As such, it is a reflection of the total incompetence of the Biden administration.

 

Bollocks. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan would have been a "disaster" since the entire country is a disaster. It's been clear for years now that all the U.S. was doing was propping up yet another corrupt unpopular government against a local insurgency. The Afghan government was a complete disaster itself.

 

1 hour ago, Thales said:

Biden misleadingly claimed that he would "heal the soul of America" and that he would restore US prestige on the world stage. Instead Biden has fostered divisive racism and he has apparently dissed US allies based on the manner in which he withdrew US forces from Afghanistan. China even rightfully tossed Biden racist remarks back at US diplomats when they held a meeting in Anchorage, AK in March 2021. Instead of restoring US prestige, Biden is giving the US a "black eye".

A completely biased view of the political landscape.

 

1 hour ago, Thales said:

I've been reading second hand accounts that European leaders are less than pleased with Biden's leadership.

"Some people say..."

 

1 hour ago, Thales said:

I would be interested in knowing what the perception is from Europe.

Likely they would prefer Biden to Trump or Dubya. You're right though, Biden is no Obama.

Edited by wowgetoffyourcellphone
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11 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

In Germany everyone who doesn't say 'Hooray!' to NATO is considered to be an extremist and/or idiot.

In  the Netherlands, this is not the case and you can soundly dislike NATO. However unlike Germany, we do have an unpleasant history with Srebrenica. I can imagine that the French aren't big fans after the things thrown their way after not joining in Iraq.

 

3 hours ago, Thales said:

I've been reading second hand accounts that European leaders are less than pleased with Biden's leadership. I would be interested in knowing what the perception is from Europe.

Biden is a seasoned politician. In Europe we are not affected so much by Trumps(or some republicans) views of him being stupid or senile. Clearly things did not go sweet. However in the Netherlands, we mainly are looking at our own incapability of evacuating our civilian personnel, which is something the French did a lot better.

Probably in Europe it seems fair to hold the opinion that if you do not spend that 2% budget on military, you can't get an optimal military or relation with NATO. Also in the Netherlands it is accepted that the Dutch followed NATO to Afghanistan without a proper plan.

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7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Bollocks. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan would have been a "disaster" since the entire country is a disaster. It's been clear for years now that all the U.S. was doing was propping up yet another corrupt unpopular government against a local insurgency. The Afghan government was a complete disaster itself.

Depends on your definition of "disaster". You are correct the US was propping up yet another corrupt government. The US should never have gone into Afghanistan, the "graveyard of empires". From my point of view the "disaster" was the manner in how the withdrawal was handled. Biden and the general pompously declared, over time, that the Afghan army would hold-up and that all contingencies had been planned for. Well, the Afghan army collapsed, US military equipment was left behind, and the US was not prepared to evacuate US citizens from Afghanistan. That military equipment also represents a lot of technology that will now become available to Iran, China, Russia, and Pakistan.

For comparison, I wonder how the Russian withdrawal (15 May 1988 and ended on 15 February 1989 ) from Afghanistan went?

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A completely biased view of the political landscape.

Ok, but I will say that it is the correct viewpoint.

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

"Some people say..."

Of course, that was the preamble to my question that I was soliciting input for. "I've been reading second hand accounts that European leaders are less than pleased with Biden's leadership. I would be interested in knowing what the perception is from Europe." Thanks for responding as I wanted those that had better knowledge of the European take.

7 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Likely they would prefer Biden to Trump or Dubya. You're right though, Biden is no Obama.

Thanks for answering.

Edited by Thales
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Not that I'm a fan of Biden, but I think he is generally more liked and respected by the population and politicians than his predecessor. Except for some fringe elements (like racists) and some right wing politicians, I don't think anyone liked Trump or even took him serious. He's such an unstable character, Biden is much less erratic.

Biden sticks to an aggressive foreign policy, but at least he isn't treating his allies like sht.

All our leading politicians are devoted to reach those 2%. I read we already got the 7th biggest military, reaching the 2% would get us to 4th. Which I think is insane. Much better ways to use that money. Also, looking at history, one would think our neighbors might have some reservations...

There is some logic in joining the strongest gang, but since I don't agree politics should work that way, and looking at the methods and results, I'm all for leaving NATO.

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Biden's reputation was indeed spoiled a little by this retreat going so bad, at least here in Italy. But I myself can't see it this way. Would it be so much better if the Afghan republic lasted one more year? The only true disaster was the occupation of that country, not the retreat. Everything that went bad during the retreat itself, did it so because of how the occupation was managed. Obama may have had a much better perceived image, but he should better have listened to Biden at his time, his commitments in Afghanistan were truly a total disaster.

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A lot of people have been throwing flak at Biden, and while I would not say the withdrawal was the best parade out of a country, I find it unfair to push all of the blame on him.  Clearly he was acting on some intelligence, and the idea that the government would collapse in a number of weeks I would say blindsided much of the world, myself included. The New York Times has an interesting article on the matter that might be worth a read.  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/politics/afghanistan-intelligence-agencies.html

Obviously he could have delayed the pullout considering the warning signs, but that would have been political suicide.  Keeping to the arranged time was arguably the best bad decision, but quite obviously mistakes were made by Biden and a large number of others.

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As a pretty hardcore Bernie bro who had Biden far down on their list in the primary all the drama here is ridiculous. Firstly this was initiated by Trump. Secondly it isn't like Biden could have called the generals on the phone and been like: "Yo don't leave a bunch of top tier military equipment for the enemy." The military was in charge, not him.

Additionally handling the collapse of the Afghan army any better was impossible. They were always going to fold without our support and obviously you can't say that during the operation. Of course they said the ANA would hold on.

The UK was welcome to take over the leading role in the country if they don't like the US pulling out. They didn't though so they need to STFU. Especially Blair.

All the military and natsec people are piling on Biden because they want to send a message to political leaders that they'll try to tank their careers if they don't endorse forever war. Half the people in the media giving out quotes are Raytheon board members and stuff. Of course they're mad. This was their golden goose.

We'd been losing ground to the Taliban for months, they were only holding off on Kabul because they didn't wanna stop us from leaving.

The real problem was all the contractors and their lobbyists and the politicans who danced to their tune pretending like the Afghan government was a real government that had the trust and respect of the populace and the line troops in the army. A bunch of corrupt warlords sucking on the Pentagon teat were never going to inspire the people to fight. You couldn't even go at it Kurdish style and arm the women who had a lot more to lose since the culture of the masses doesn't support that there.

Of all the people involved in leadership Biden was the only one who really wanted to pull out and the only one who didn't have a motivation to flub the withdrawal. We are lucky he is an old man who wanted a leagacy of peace and pulled the trigger even knowing how hard all the special interests were going to @#$% on him. Not my favorite president but at least he wasn't a coward like Obama.

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9 minutes ago, MoLAoS said:

All the military and natsec people are piling on Biden because they want to send a message to political leaders that they'll try to tank their careers if they don't endorse forever war. Half the people in the media giving out quotes are Raytheon board members and stuff. Of course they're mad. This was their golden goose.

steve-carell-thankyou.gif

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21 minutes ago, MoLAoS said:

Not my favorite president but at least he wasn't a coward like Obama.

Agreed. Obama was a complete disappointment who bought into the national security state apparatus the moment he secured the Democratic nomination. His language started to "moderate" and I started to realize we weren't going to have a good time. He wasn't even subtle about his rhetorical shift. I guess it's "presidential" to adopt the "prevailing wisdom" of Washington. While Obama did a few good things, overall he just carried on carrying on what President Cheney started before him. Oddly enough, it was Centrist Centrist Biden who wanted to do the radical thing and pull out ASAP. I guess he actually had skin in the game (family members in the armed forces) while Obama and most of Congress did not. 

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On 04/09/2021 at 12:56 AM, MoLAoS said:

We are lucky he is an old man who wanted a leagacy of peace and pulled the trigger even knowing how hard all the special interests were going to @#$% on him. Not my favorite president but at least he wasn't a coward like Obama.

LOL. 'Legacy of peace' my shiny heinie. He is a mass murderer and war criminal just like probably every other US president and their staffs. Obama also did his share of killings and atrocities, don't know why he'd be considered a coward.

My guess is Biden just saw it as a lost cause and wants to concentrate on the next big thing. US military is planning a war against China within the next two to five years, 'simply because it is necessary'.

 

On 30/09/2021 at 7:33 AM, Lion.Kanzen said:

ask the trilateral commission and Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski.

The man who planned the war in Afghanistan was him, but he's already dead.

As happy as I am he's dead, unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of blood-thirsty warmongers.

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4 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

LOL. 'Legacy of peace' my shiny heinie. He is a mass murderer and war criminal just like probably every other US president and their staffs. Obama also did his share of killings and atrocities, don't know why he'd be considered a coward.

My guess is Biden just saw it as a lost cause and wants to concentrate on the next big thing. US military is planning a war against China within the next two to five years, 'simply because it is necessary'.

 

As happy as I am he's dead, unfortunately there seems to be no shortage of blood-thirsty warmongers.

industrial military complex.

 

 

 

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Going back to my title, I quote from the 1997 book of the late Presidential advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, 'The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives' to make the point of what U.S. foreign and defense policy under Trump.

 

 

 

It is nothing less than application of the Brzezinski geopolitical challenge and the preventive war notion of the Bush-Wolfowitz doctrine in context of today's emerging resistance to an American sole superpower domination.

 

Brzezinski, was of course architect of Jimmy Carter's Afghan war against the Soviet Army using Mujahideen Islamic terrorists trained by the CIA, Saudi Intelligence and Pakistan ISI.

 

In 1997 he wrote that it was,

 

"imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America."

 

He further declared,

 

"Potentially the most dangerous scenario would be an 'anti-hegemonic' coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances… a grand coalition of China, Russia, perhaps Iran…

 

 

 

Averting this contingency… will require U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously."

 

When we add to this the recent Pentagon National Defense Strategy document that defines Russia and China as the greatest potential threat to American hegemony, then combine this with the growing ties between Russia, China and Iran since lifting of sanctions in 2015, especially in Syria, it becomes clear what Washington is doing.

 

 

 

They are in an all-out effort to break what I call the Eurasian Challenge to the sole hegemon:

 

Russia

 

China

 

Iran

 

As Brzezinski pointed out, for American purposes of continued domination, it matters not that there are ethnic, religious and other differences between Russia, China and Iran.

 

 

 

U.S. foreign policy since September 2001 has increasingly forced those three to cooperate, despite those differences, for what they see as defense of their national sovereignty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target Russia…

 

Look at the recent events in light of the Brzezinski Eurasia warning of 1997.

 

 

 

Washington stood behind the UK in the bogus Skripal poisoning affair that was blamed, with no proof, on Russia.

 

 

 

A fake chemical attack outside Damascus then was used as pretext for the illegal U.S. bombing raid, ignoring all precepts of the United Nations Charter and international law.

 

 

 

That, in retrospect, was more of a test of possible Russian reaction. Whether or not U.S. Tomahawk and other missiles hit or not, the precedent was set for Israel and other U.S. allies to escalate attacks on Iran in Syria.

 

Then come diabolical new crippling sanctions against "Putin's oligarchs" such as Deripaska of Rusal, world's second largest aluminum producer. Washington doesn't even try to make up excuses for new sanctions.

 

 

 

They state as reason that the Russian government is involved in,

 

"a range of malign activity around the globe."

 

The new sanctions punish any Western banks or investors holding shares in sanctioned Russian companies even if they were bought before the new sanctions.

 

 

 

It is the U.S. Treasury's new form of financial war, every bit as deadly as shooting wars, if not more so.

 

 

 

It developed in the wake of 911 and has since been refined to a devastating weapon of warfare using the fact that under economic globalization, the world is still dependent on the U.S. dollar for trade and for central bank currency reserves to an overwhelming degree.

 

For the first time, under the latest U.S. sanctions on Russian individual oligarchs and companies, not only is future access to borrow in western capital markets blocked.

 

 

 

Non-Russian investors who invested billions in select Russian companies in recent years have been forced to panic liquidate or face secondary sanctions for holding Russian assets.

 

 

 

But who will buy?

 

 

 

Already the two major EU securities clearing companies, Clearstream and Euroclear have been forced to refuse clearing sanctioned Russian securities.

 

 

 

They also face sanctions to hold the Russian shares.

 

 

 

If, say, a Chinese state bank is borrowing from dollar markets, they are now de facto prohibited from doing business with sanctioned Russian companies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target China…

 

At the same time as Washington escalates pressure on Putin's Russia over Syria and Ukraine, they launch the early stage of what will clearly be a devastating economic war with China using trade as the initial lever.

 

 

 

Washington, as I pointed out in a previous article, is aiming to force China to dismantle its strategy to bring China's economy over the next decade into leading status of hi tech producer.

 

 

 

The strategy is called China 2025 and is the heart of the Xi Jinping strategic agenda and of his Belt Road Initiative or economic Silk Road project.

 

The first taste of what Washington plans to target China's move to become a high-tech world leader under China 2025 is the treatment of leading China telecomm maker ZTE and Huawei, major challengers of Apple.

 

 

 

ZTE was sanctioned in April by Washington for allegedly selling telecommunications equipment to Iran. U.S. suppliers have been banned from supplying essential components to the China tech group.

 

 

 

The company has temporarily shut operations as it tries to win a reprieve from the U.S..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Target Iran…

 

Now, over the vehement protests of Germany and France and other EU states, Trump unilaterally tears up the Iran nuclear agreement.

 

 

 

The aim is clearly to re-impose crippling sanctions again on Iran, disrupt the feeble progress that was begun since 2015. The fact that the EU refuses to break its treaty agreement with Iran will be ultimately of little consequence as U.S. sanctions on Iran also threaten with sanctions EU companies doing business in Iran.

 

As part of the latest Trump tearing up of the nuclear agreement with Iran, the USA gives other countries like China or Japan or EU countries 180 days to end any purchase deals for Iran oil.

 

 

 

European companies like Airbus that have multi-billion aircraft purchase orders from Iran will be forced to cancel.

 

 

 

On 6 August, the purchase of U.S. dollars, trade in gold and certain other metals, as well as aviation and the car industry will be sanctioned.

 

 

 

After 4 November U.S. sanctions will target Iran's financial and oil institutions and sanctions reinstated against individuals previously on the U.S. Treasury sanctions list.

 

The clear aim is to use the devastating new weapons of U.S. Treasury pin-point sanctions to plunge Iran's fragile economy into crisis.

 

 

 

At the same time reports are that NSC Adviser John Bolton is advocating reinvigorating the Iranian Mujahedeen Khalq, or MEK terrorist organization to launch a new try at a Color Revolution.

 

 

 

MEK was removed from the U.S. State Department terror list by Secretary of State Clinton in 2012.

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