TNR: The Case for Reparations for Afghanistan

[enhanced_deficit]

Probably just coincidence that amidst chatter of new Afghan gummit demanding reparations from UK, this article appears in TNR today:

The New Republic
The Case for Reparations for Afghanistan
Since Kabul fell in August, Afghanistan's economy and banking system have been in freefall. More than half its population is...
11 hours ago
https://newrepublic.com/article/164863/case-reparations-afghanistan


Another rant in non-MSM media:

After Forty Years of U.S. Destruction of Afghanistan, it’s Time for Reparations

The U.S. armed jihadists and invited Bin Laden as part of the Cold War; abandoned the country to criminal warlords and civil war; created conditions for rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda; since 9/11 waged brutal war and broke every promise to rebuild the economy – Wilkerson and Jay on theAnalysis.news.

TRANSCRIPT
Paul Jay

Hi, welcome to theAnalysis.news, I’m Paul Jay. In a minute, we’ll be back with Larry Wilkerson to discuss the role of the United States in destroying Afghanistan. Please don’t forget the donate button. Without your financial support, we can’t do this.

As the Taliban assert full control over Afghanistan, mainstream media is mostly discussing when the U.S. withdrawal should have taken place and was the withdrawal properly planned? There’s very little conversation about why the United States is in Afghanistan, in the first place. It’s taken as a given that after 9/11 the United States had to invade in order to defend its national security interest, and even that’s a dubious prospect. Many experts, back at the time, advocated a police-style action in Afghanistan, not an invasion, which was likely illegal under international law. But what about the question, why was there a 9/11 in the first place? Why is there a Taliban? Why is there an Al Qaeda? Those questions don’t get discussed at all on corporate media, or at least I’m not hearing it.

The answer begins with U.S. policy since the Second World War, which has been to assert global dominance, especially in the region of the Middle East and Eurasia. That is the root of the issue here. A vision articulated by President Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor — it was a big new Brezinski, in his book The Grand Chessboard. He called for American global hegemony and the need for American dominance in Eurasia to achieve that. The weakening of the Soviet Union was the prime objective and anything that achieved that was justified. Including the use of Pakistan to arm rural Afghan Jihadists against the Pro-Soviet government of Afghanistan, in order to induce a Soviet invasion and their own Vietnam-style quagmire.

The Afghan Communist government had infuriated tribal leaders, with edicts that allowed girls to go to school and women to work. That’s supposedly an objective the Americans supported. Although life in major cities was quite modern, with women enjoying basic rights — they use to go to school in pants and skirts, not burkas. The Communist government also alienated many urban Afghans, with their bureaucratic and repressive rule. An armed insurgency developed in the countryside amongst poorly armed tribal forces. It was this rural opposition that was armed with modern weaponry by the United States under the Carter, then much more under the Reagan administrations. With the cooperation of the Pakistan Militarian ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency. It’s here that the U.S. policy sacrifices Afghanistan’s organic modernization, for a victory, in the Cold War. Thirty years of misery, Civil War, and medieval backwardness are a direct consequence of the U.S. imperial Cold War strategy.

The process of asserting such global military dominance, while a very profitable one for the military and fossil fuel industrial complex, doesn’t even serve the interest of the Empire very well, let alone the American people who sacrifice their daughters and sons. In reality, one can look from Vietnam to the Iraq Wars, as the best examples of that. Attempts at military dominance have mostly ended in debacles. All that being said, it seems the real objective is the process, not the outcome. It’s all about the money-making, the trillions of dollars that flow into the coffers of the very rich. Be damned how many lives are lost along the way. As much as this imperial policy has failed to achieve its stated objectives, the thinking of geopolitical hegemony still runs deep in the American elites. Not only because it’s profitable and it does help maintain a certain amount of commercial global dominance, but because they still believe they are the chosen nation, the exceptional nation. Of course, the whole weight of American culture works to make ordinary Americans believe it too. Hopefully, one of the positives that comes out of the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan is something that was talked about after the Vietnam War, which is a fatigue amongst the American people for more military intervention.

In a 1997 document, produced by the Project for New American Century, written by a bunch of Neo-cons that wound up running the Bush-Cheney foreign policy, they talk about this Vietnam syndrome. They even talk about the need for a new Pearl Harbor to energize the American people to support new military interventions. Well, they got their new Pearl Harbor on 9/11. It must be added that Senator Bob Graham, who was the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Co-Chair of the joint congressional investigation into 9/11, believes these attacks were allowed to take place and even facilitated by the Bush-Cheney White House. More on that another time. After seeing the scenes of this evacuation debacle in Afghanistan, hopefully, there will now be an Afghan syndrome.

The U.S. did not fail at nation-building in Afghanistan. It succeeded in nation-destroying. The wellbeing of the Afghan people was never the American objective, and to blame the Afghans for a narco economy and the Taliban back in control is the height of hypocrisy. I think the U.S. and other NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] countries owe the Afghan people reparations.

Now joining us to talk about the historical context and current situation in Afghanistan is Colonel Larry Wilkerson. He was the former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Thanks very much for joining us, Larry.

...
https://theanalysis.news/after-fort...tion-of-afghanistan-its-time-for-reparations/





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"No one currently alive was responsible for that."


National debt hits $29 trillion

 

[69360]

I think the money from the previous government held up in US banks should be released to the Taliban. They won the war, oversaw a very orderly withdrawl and by all acounts aren't participating in widespread reprisals. Regular people in Afghanistan are going to starve over the winter because the US government is holding up money that is theirs.

I don't support any reparations, just the release of current funds.

 

[oyarde]

Uh no . No reparations . ED if you would quit voting for Obama and biden you may not feel so guilty about Afghanis.

 

[enhanced_deficit]

Would be nice if the new Taliban gummit becomes just as cooperative with UK/US as was last imported Ghani gov (compassionate factions of globalist neocons who tend to launch global proxy wars to spread freedom and help children, women and men in their native lands as part of geo strategic initiatives; neocon factions that instigate global interventions motivated by greed, racism, wars profteering etc should be kept out of all future planning).
And yes, ending sanctions that starve local populations would the right thing to do. Releasing Afghan gov funds besides easing growing humanitarian crisis would also help mitigate Afghan refugees exodus pressure being faced by Europe/US these days.