Afghanistan: How America and NATO Betrayed the Global Humanity
- Written by Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776), one of the leading ideological architects of American Freedom noted: “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
America and NATO Lacked Sense of Rational Thinking, Practices and They Lied
For twenty long years, American led NATO occupied Afghanistan under the guise of peace, nation-building, democracy and strategic harmony. Lacking wisdom and forbearance, America and NATO became swollen with pride and prejudice in their military power and fell into crass materialism, violence and planned destruction of Afghanistan and its political destiny. On August 16, President Biden in his speech clarified that it was not the aim of “nation-building” or “democracy” to keep our forces in Afghanistan. He acknowledged that Afghan political leaders were responsible for the turmoil and continuing societal conflicts with massive corruption and illegitimacy of the political rule as they fled the country. American leadership and allied NATO countries blame the Taliban for the prevalent chaos and insecurity across Afghanistan. The Western news media appears biased and unprepared to recognize the new Taliban administration as a legitimate transformational entity for peace and stability in the region. The myth of Taliban being an extreme “Islamist”, “militant” and sometimes a “terrorist” group is kept functional in all of the recent reporting. Do the Western news media ever describe the Bush’s invasion as “Christian Crusade” or “terrorist” occupation of Afghanistan? To revisit the formative history, the Western leaders deny any reference to the pathological lies and political deception engineered by George W. Bush when he invaded Afghanistan as part of the prolonged scheme of “war on terrorism.”
Michel Meacher, former British Environment Minister under PM Blair (“This War on Terrorism is Bogus”) - provides reliable insight into the real reasons for the 'War on Terrorism'. He claims that the "war on terror" is flatly superficial:
“the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination ... the so-called 'war on terrorism' is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives ... in fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11.”
According to David Corn (“Is the President a Pathological Liar?” 12/2003; and the Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, 2003), Bush lied and misled the American masses about the real reasoning foe the invasion of Afghanistan. Recall that it was Al-Quada (the US sponsored and trained group) blamed by Bush for the 9/11 attack, not Taliban. Afghanistan under Taliban government in 2003 had no military-political capacity to threaten America or its security in any rational context. When nations and leaders live in darkness - away from truth, they seem to lose any rational sense of direction and imagination. This happened to America and NATO under its control. No wonder, why America and NATO are fearful of the futuristic unthinkable consequences if truth is revealed to the global mankind. They invaded Afghanistan without any justification, dismantled its culture and values and tortured innocent civilians and political enemies – the Bagram Airbase tells that all.
Talibans are the people of Afghanistan and are a political organization within the geo-political culture of Afghanistan. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was politically motivated after some twenty years of struggle for power. If Taliban are dressed in their own national costumes, speak their own language and adhere to Islamic thoughts and values, it does not make them terrorist or Islamists. In all perceptive eyes and rational analysis, Taliban is a political party, not a “terrorist” entity or an extremist “Islamists” as some Western media suggests to its public viewers. If they were terrorist or extremists, why would America and NATO and others engage them in peacemaking conferences and forging relationships over the decades? In its pursuit of unbridled ambitions and global hegemonic power, America and its allies enjoin wrong thinking, wrong aims and do the wrong things as it happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
Glenn Greenwald, a prominent American journalist and lawyer (“The US Government Lied for Two Decades about Afghanistan”, Information Clearing House: 8/16/2021) makes the startling remarks: The pattern of lying was virtually identical throughout several administrations when it came to Afghanistan. In 2019, The Washington Post — obviously with a nod to the Pentagon Papers — published a report about secret documents it dubbed “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war.” Under the headline “AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH,” The Post summarized its findings:……Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.
In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.” None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban on their own.
Towards Making Peaceful Future of Afghanistan under Taliban
Taliban has just been in Kabul for two days, and one should not expect miracles out of a systematically and politically destroyed country under NATO and American occupation for 20 years. The chaos at Kabul airport is a glimpse what went wrong under the foreign occupation and exploitation. Taliban appear to be in control of the whole of Afghanistan and will need planned efforts and a wide range of reconciliation efforts to settle-in for viable political governance. One cannot imagine law and order to come out of nowhere in a highly chaotic situation ordained by America and NATO’s absurdity and contradictions for a long time.
Caitline Johnstone ( “Stop Believing that US Military Invasions had Noble Intentions”, Information Clearing House: 8/16/2021) makes us believe that: If the US had a free press and was anything like a democracy, the government wouldn’t be getting away with squandering thousands of lives and trillions of dollars on a twenty-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making assholes obscenely wealthy.
Thousands of human lives. Trillions of dollars. If western mass media were anything remotely resembling what they purport to be, they would be making sure the public understands how badly their government just fucked them. Instead it’s just “Oh no, those poor Afghan women.”… I am once again asking you to stop believing US military invasions have noble intentions.
War apologists talk about “doing nothing” like that’s somehow worse than creating mountains of human corpses for They had twenty years to build a stable nation in Afghanistan. Twenty years. If you believe that’s what they were really trying to do there, or that results would be any different if you gave them twenty more, you’re a fucking moron.
America and its belligerent allies have caused havoc humanitarian, social, economic and political conditions in Afghanistan. The war and its consequences will not end with the US sudden withdrawal but will leave imprints for generations to come - the innocent men, women and children massacred and human habitats destroyed. Should America and its allies not be held accountable by the Afghan people for all the war damages? Please see: “America led-NATO forces in Afghanistan: Crimes against humanity call for accountability”: 7/10/2021. https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2021/07/10/american-led-nato-forces-in-afghanistan-crimes-against-humanity-call-for-accountability.php
Also see by Mahboob A. Khawaja - “How the United States and Britain Lost the Bogus Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Global Research: 10/22/2010: https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-the-united-states-and-britain-lost-the-bogus-wars-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/21556
Would the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague initiate actions to hold the US-British and others NATO members responsible for the war damages and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who would patch the wounds of torture and cold blood murdered committed at Bagram prison and Guantanamo Bay? Americans strategic psyche is desperate to be seen as a winner, not loser in Afghanistan. Would Taliban allow the American –NATO military plans to disrupt the future of nation-rebuilding and political stability? If America’s egoism turns into cancer to consume both gimmicks, where would the wounds and warriors be buried with honor - would it be the bombed graveyards of Afghanistan or the new secret sites in America? More often wars have ended on their own after exhaustion and unworthy cause with or without political dialogues to make the roadmaps for the future. Would peace and reconciliation with Taliban usher a new era for a different kind of future and co-existence to all concerned? If the mankind was looking towards ethical principles and some rational consideration to be in peace and harmony after the dreadful warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and drone killings in Pakistan, it is utterly dismayed with the US politicians and policy makers. Time and again, they appear to be devoid of reason and any sense of humanity and accountability for their belligerent acts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Global politics is not a system of moral principles or intellectual and political values but often an absurd game – a cruel drama - a puppet show staged to appease the few bloody Draculas - a psychopath puzzle of few insane people who had nothing useful to contribute to the mankind except drudgery, deceit, lies and inborn deceptions - the net outcome of this Thinking was the bogus War on Terrorism. It is unclear what is in-waiting for the US and NATO after shamefully leaving Afghanistan without any formal agreement or surrender to the new political realties in Kabul. “History is a weapon and tyranny is tyranny” noted late historian Howard Zinn. American intransigence in Afghanistan will not be a new exciting story in history books.
Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 12/2019.
