Jan. 15, 2013
US troops are set to leave Afghanistan in 2014, but an unidentified number will stay behind. This is an open-ended occupation that, combined with a pernicious drug war, constitutes a clear and present danger to Afghan, regional and global security.
Here’s the full transcript of a Q&A session where I fielded questions from rambunctious Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari on US adventurism in Afghanistan.
Kourosh Ziabari:What do you think about the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement? Will this agreement pave the way for the continuation of US presence in Afghanistan after the troops’ withdrawal of 2014? Won’t such an agreement be detrimental to the interests and security of Afghanistan?
Evgeny Kruschev: Well, if the American mentors themselves consider the Afghan army and police force ‘a joke,’ and are pretty outspoken about the opium poppy puppet regime they hate but have to bolster, what kind of ‘partnership’ are you talking about?
The Afghan/American security misalliance is a livid example of smoldering antagonism, punctuated by point-blank green-on-blue stings; therefore by default any agreement between master and servant would be unilaterally enforced or violated at the whim of the overlord, notwithstanding the lofty legal verbiage committed to paper.
It is not this or the follow-up SOFA, Status of Forces Agreement between Washington & Kabul, which per se is detrimental to the future of Afghanistan.
KZ: There are reports indicating that since the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2003, the cultivation of opium has increased dramatically and the United States hasn't taken any major steps to fight the drug trade in the war-torn country. You've written on this extensively. Would you please explain more about that? Is it a large-scale US policy to condone the rise of drug production?
EK: Purportedly, the White House, whatever its political coloration, has been on the record against narcotics at home and abroad. The grim reality is the much-touted US War on Drugs is agitprop cover for a US drug war on us, worldwide.
Historically, Washington’s political, intelligence and military interference – Southeast Asia, South America, the Balkans and Africa – has been followed by an explosion of narco-production.
The United States doesn’t condone narcotics. It promotes drug production and consumption as a quintessential part of its undeclared ‘3D Diplomacy’ – democracy, dollars and drugs – to penetrate, corrupt and manipulate countries from within.
Afghanistan is just the latest and the most glaring case study of grisly symbiosis and synergy between the US boot print and local drug lords, which has transformed the country into American narco-reservation with more than 90 percent of the opium and cannabis market share, quietly killing 100,000 annually without any outrage in the mainstream media.
KZ: Where is the war in Afghanistan heading? Every day, we hear of more American and NATO troops being killed in bomb blasts along with more drone attacks on unarmed civilians, bringing destruction to a war-torn country that needs dozens of years to reconstruct its infrastructure. What's your perspective on that?
EK: What you postulated in the question – the war in Afghanistan – deserves a closer examination because all too often it’s misperceived as a vanguard of American GWAT, Global War on Terror.
Since 9/11, neither the White House nor the US Congress has declared any hostilities against any adversary anywhere. So in legal terms, America is not at war with anybody, including a smorgasbord of antigovernment elements in Afghanistan. However, it’s blatantly obvious that America is neither at peace with Afghanistan, its neighbors or the Muslim world at large.
In military terms, the US occupation of Afghanistan – OED, Operation Enduring Freedom – is a type of unconventional mission, however impossible, which is a subdivision of asymmetrical warfare.
The most ‘unconventional’ thing about this Operation Enduring Opium is to preserve and protect narco-democracy in Afghanistan under the disguise of the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency dog and pony show, while sponsoring and schmoozing with the frenemy and sometimes even shooting at them along both sides of the Duran Line.
On the other side, the American mission in Afghanistan constitutes an undeclared war against global security and stability where opium has been utilized as a hidden WMD, a weapon of mass destruction and distraction to advance ‘chaos management’ strategy.
As for US KIA & MIA in Afghanistan, it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the domestic homicide rate and the Pentagon’s rape and suicide body count. In a sense, it’s a bargain: American blood and treasure for the 3D Diplomacy of Domination Doctrine.
Until Afghans sober up from American ‘greed is good’ values, and switch from war and drug profiteering to soul-searching, they will remain low-maintenance narco-slaves and mules on the US reservation, deprived of faith and national self-identity; fighting for democracy, dollars and drugs.
KZ: Do you agree with this American assumption that the Afghan National Army is incapable of providing security for the country without a US presence? Is it a good justification for the continuation of the military presence of the United States in Afghanistan?
EK: If would be unfair to present the US stance on Afghanistan as an undisputed consensus, because there has been no unanimity of views between the US military, intel and diplomatic communities on Afghan affairs, including operational readiness of the ANSF, Afghan National Security Force. Whatever the White House’s assumptions on the issue, it cuts both ways.
On the one side, under US/NATO guidance, ANSF is unwilling and unable to take full responsibility and provide security and stability for the country. On the other side, the US has stubbornly refused the reality check that after having spent billions of dollars, the Pentagon is in fact training and financing the enemy: The current ANSAF is the future auxiliary force for the Taliban, and the spiraling trend of the green-on-blue attacks is a harbinger of things to come.
Yes, for the US it’s a self-defeating approach to continue to train the Afghan Army and police, but paradoxically, this pseudo strategy offers a cynical excuse for a permanent US residual force and the occupation of Afghanistan.
KZ: Would you please tell us more about the Red Team Study, which investigated the mutual perceptions of the Afghanistan army soldiers and the NATO coalition forces in Afghanistan? It seems that they are not much friendly toward each other and vent different grievances toward each other. What’s your take on that?
EK: Since September, I have posted a sequel on Afghan/American military and security ‘partnership,’ based on the first Pentagon Red Team Study on the subject, which was foolishly reclassified after the embarrassing findings had already been spilled into the public domain.
Obviously, there’s no love lost between Afghan green and American blue forces, but the situation is much worse than just a lack of friendship and camaraderie between alien and indigenous ‘partners.’
The title of the report defines the problem as ‘A crisis of trust and cultural incompatibility;’ I call it a ‘bloody credibility gap’ and ‘Afghan hatred vs. American disgust’.
The initial idea behind the Red Team studies at the Pentagon was to play devil’s advocate for the established policies and procedures, this time for the US training mission in Afghanistan. To the dismay and horror of top brass, this Red Team finding has accidentally revealed the main legacy of the US occupation – top-down, across-the-board institutionalized corruption, fueled by drug production in the host country.
However, the author came perilously close to the inevitable self-incriminating conclusion: It is nigh-impossible to advocate devil’s design and deleterious deeds behind America’s pernicious policy in Afghanistan.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
source: RT
No comments:
Post a Comment