Image by Debra Sweet via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
RT America on Mar 11, 2020
The ceasefire between US forces and the Taliban is hanging on by a thread. While the peace deal promised to bring an end to America’s longest war, thousands of US troops remain on the ground and the Afghan government is in turmoil. In the meantime, the mainstream media continues to gloss over the leaked Afghanistan Papers of 2019. RT America’s Manila Chan sits down with “On Contact” host and Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges to discuss.
Watch video here.
From the archives:
Chris Hedges: The Afghanistan Papers
Will Griffin: Afghanistan Papers–Another Circus Show
Will Griffin: The Three Main Reasons Why The U.S. Invaded and Occupied Afghanistan
Will Griffin and Matthew Hoh: Fighting the Unwinnable War in Afghanistan, Parts 1-3
17 Years of Getting Afghanistan Completely Wrong by David Swanson
The War of US and NATO Imperialism in Afghanistan by Fazal Rahman, Ph.D.
Matthew Hoh: Trump’s New Afghanistan Strategy: Windfall for the Military-Industrial Complex
Chris Hedges and Matthew Hoh: Afghanistan War Keeps Going Because the Money Keeps Flowing In
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As Neta C. Crawford has documented, the United States federal government has spent or obligated $6.4 trillion dollars on the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. These costs were paid for almost entirely by borrowing money. By 2050, the interest payments on this will be over 8 trillions (1, 2). On the war in Afghanistan alone, close to $1 trillion have been spent, since the US and NATO invasion in 2001. Taliban are now stronger than ever, have captured a lot of American armaments (they are experienced and knowledgeable in guerilla warfare and know that in war against a conventionally much stronger enemy, one of the major sources of weapons is the enemy), and control much of the country, especially in the rural Afghanistan. At one time, US and NATO had 150,000 troops there (most of them Americans) and also troops from 50 prostituting countries. It is now clear that the American-led longest war has been lost. Trump now seems to be thinking and deciding with his business mind and sees the futility of continuation, as well as has the November elections in mind. That is why he has agreed to most of the major Taliban demands for a peace deal, including non-inclusion of its puppet government in that. If the US had insisted on that, Taliban would have walked away. Hence, it is good and not bad that the US agreed to that.
Talibans’ most important objective is the expulsion of the invading US and NATO forces, and that is part of the peace deal, which is a victory for the Taliban, and they consider it as such. Chris Hedges’ criticism about not having disarmaments, as part of the peace deal, does not make any sense and is totally unrealistic. How can anyone expect to disarm the Taliban? That would have been the peace-deal-killer. After the US and NATO withdrawal, their puppet government and its military are not likely to last more than a few months. After defeating the military forces, Taliban will capture much of the American supplied equipment and weapons, and become even stronger.
Under the drastically changed balance of military and economic forces in the world, US and NATO imperialisms cannot afford to continue to launch such costly wars anymore, without shooting themselves in the feet. This is especially true under the current conditions of Corona Virus wreaking worldwide economic havoc.
1. Crawford, Neta, C. Pentagon Fuel Use, Climate Change, and the Costs of War. Neta C. Crawford Boston University June 12, 2019. Watson Institute, Brown University.
2. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic