Antiwar.com Original
Originally posted at TomDispatch.
Shouldn’t we be amazed? After all, for almost 20 years, the U.S. military has been supporting, equipping, training, and building up the Afghan military to the tune of more than $70 billion. The result: a corrupt mess of a force likely to prove incapable of successfully defending the U.S.-backed Afghan state from the Taliban once our troops are gone that is, by this September 11th.
I mean, what were the odds? All too high, I’m afraid, given the US military’s record in Afghanistan and elsewhere in these years. (Think about the collapse
Joe Biden faces the return of a recurring nightmare U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, second from right, with, from left, Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Vice President Joe Biden participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., March 24, 2015.
DoD photo by Glenn Fawcett, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
TomDispatchMay 06, 2021
Many of us have had a recurring nightmare. You know the one. In a fog between sleeping and waking, you re trying desperately to escape from something awful, some looming threat, but you feel paralyzed. Then, with great relief, you suddenly wake up, covered in sweat. The next night, or the next week, though, that same dream returns.
NationofChange
Will the nightmare of Saigon s fall return in Kabul?
Many of us have had a recurring nightmare. You know the one. In a fog between sleeping and waking, youâre trying desperately to escape from something awful, some looming threat, but you feel paralyzed. Then, with great relief, you suddenly wake up, covered in sweat. The next night, or the next week, though, that same dream returns.
For politicians of Joe Bidenâs generation that recurring nightmare was Saigon, 1975. Communist tanks ripping through the streets as friendly forces flee. Thousands of terrified Vietnamese allies pounding at the U.S. Embassyâs gates. Helicopters plucking Americans and Vietnamese from rooftops and disgorging them on Navy ships. Sailors on those ships, now filled with refugees, shoving those million-dollar helicopters into the sea. The greatest power on Earth sent into the most dismal of defeats.
The Lost Hegemon: Whom the Gods Would Destroy
Opium Wars, bin Laden, and Mujahideen
“When the operation started in 1979, this region grew opium only for regional markets and produced no heroin. Within two years, however, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer. . . . CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax.” Alfred McCoy, author, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia
A Soviet “Vietnam”
By far the most influential voice in the US Administration of President Jimmy Carter was his National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski’s influence drew largely from the fact that he had one of the most influential patrons in the United States at the time. David Rockefeller, then chairman of the family’s Chase Manhattan Bank, one of the most influential banks internationally, had taken Brzezins
stroke sidelined him in 2004. it s going great. reporter: he returned to the broadcast as the nation welcomed in 2006, re-establishing his credentials as an american icon. bruce hall nbc news. and we ll have continuing coverage tonight on the death of dick clark. coming up at 6:30 this evening we ll be talking with mix 107.3 s jack diamond to hear his memories of the tv legend. there is also breaking news involving the secret service scandal. nbc news has learned that two of the agents implicated in the incident are resigning and a third agent is retiring. it would mark the first administrative action since the story broke. at least 20 agents and service members are accused of bringing prostitutes to their hotel in colombia last week. they allegedly met the women at a nearby strip club. nbc also learned that one of the prostitutes was involved with two agents who afterward got in a heated dispute with her over the $60 fee she demanded. she wanted to be paid for both