IS THE UNITED STATES IN DANGER OF A BREAKUP?

           President Biden after the ISIS attack on Kabul Airport, which left hundreds dead.

President Joe Biden openly admitted this week that Afghanistan is a graveyard of the Empires. The British Empire was the first to be humiliated in Afghanistan. This is how the historian William Dalrymple describes how U. K’s first incursion ended in Afghanistan. ‘The First Anglo-Afghan War was arguably the greatest military humiliation ever suffered by the West in the East. On the infamous retreat from Kabul, which began on the 6 Jan 1842, of the 18,500 who left the British cantonment, only one British citizen, the surgeon Dr. Brydon, made it through to Jalalabad six days later. An entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world utterly destroyed by poorly-equipped tribesmen’. So, 18,499 British soldiers were slaughtered by the Afghans and the only surviving soldier, being a doctor was let go so he could narrate to his masters as to what happened.

A couple more attempts by the British to invade Afghanistan also failed and their grip on India loosened sufficiently for it to become independent bringing with it the breakup of the British Empire. Some British politicians had learned their lesson and as reported by William Dalrymple ‘Even as late as October 1963, when Harold Macmillan was handing over the prime ministership to Alec Douglas-Home, he is supposed to have called the younger man to his office and passed on some reassuring advice, “My dear boy,” he said, looking down from his paper, “as long as you don’t invade Afghanistan you’ll be absolutely fine.” Sadly, John Major appears to have neglected to give the same advice to Tony Blair. In 2001, soon after the catastrophe of 9/11 Blair signed up with Bush to invade Afghanistan yet again. Thus, racking up the fourth defeat for the British in Afghanistan.

In 1979 the Soviet Union repeated the folly of invading Afghanistan. It took them ten years to realize that they were in an unwinnable war and after losing thousands of soldiers, arms and equipment retreated from Afghanistan in 1989. The impact and cost of the Afghan war was so great that The Soviet Union broke up into several states, leaving Russia on its own devoid of all the European and Central Asian states that at one time comprised The Soviet Union.

The spectacular defeat of the United States and its allies after twenty years of occupation, loss of thousands of soldiers and nearly two trillion dollars of American taxpayer money wasted with nothing to show for it plus the 100,000 innocent Afghans killed by their reckless bombing, drone attacks and daisy cutters, is not altogether surprising. The writing has been on the wall for a long time, only the U.S’ arrogance and foolish belief in their superiority did not allow them to see the impending defeat. They came to defeat Al-Qaeda, which they managed to do within three months but then expanded the war ‘to kill or capture the Taliban’ as President George W. Bush defined it. Twenty years later, they asked the Taliban to let them leave in peace and handed back the country to them once again. 

The loss of war does not by itself mean the breakup of The United States is imminent, but the massive humiliation will have far-reaching consequences on its Military and politics. There is a storm brewing within The United States and the undercurrent is so strong that it could wreak havoc on the country. A sample of it was seen on January 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob attacked the Congress building killing several policemen. The Senators and Congress members had to run for their lives, some of whom escaped just seconds before the attack. President Trump who lost the election in November 2020 is aggressively attacking President Joe Biden as he aspires to run for office again in 2024. The defeat in Afghanistan will provide him an impetus to attack the pro-war establishment and the military-industrial complex that has been pushing wars in the Middle East. He has come out of the woodworks and is already attacking the past Presidents for launching wars on Iraq, Libya, Syria & Afghanistan, calling them a great mistake. To his credit, he made a deal with the Taliban to bring this war to an end. His attacks are likely to grow louder and become more frequent to build up momentum.

President Trump’s supporters are extreme right-wing fundamentalists who do not want to see African Americans take part in voting and in various states have already passed laws to deny them voting rights. The defeat in Afghanistan and the Presidential election campaign that will start in 2022, is likely to rip the country apart and the political scene could get a great deal uglier than what we saw on January 6, 2021. Trump’s followers (including many Senators and Congress members) support the theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him and in 2024, they want the Presidential office back for him by hook or by crook.

The divide between the Northern and Southern States could crystallize and the less educated working-class blue-collar white voters in The Southern States could be pitted against the better-educated voters in The North-Eastern States and California, which are traditionally Democratic States. Encouraged by Donald Trump the election campaign could become violent just as it did on January 6 and this could lead to chaos and mayhem ripping apart the fishers that already exist in the American Society, ultimately resulting in the breakup of the United States.

  

THE DEFEAT OF YET ANOTHER SUPERPOWER AT THE HANDS OF A RAG TAG BUNCH OF PRIMITIVE AFGHAN FIGHTERS

 History repeats itself

               Vietnam 1975                                            Kabul 2021

             Desperate Afghan nationals clung to the U.S. aircraft and fell to their deaths.

The Soviet Union bit the dust in Afghanistan in 1989 and now another arrogant Superpower, the United States of America bites the dust in Afghanistan in 2021. This is despite the fact that U.S. lost the war and ran from Vietnam with its tail between its legs in 1975 and yet again history repeats itself as the U.S. runs from Aghanistan exactly in the same manner in 2021. Desperate Afghans clinging to helicopters/aircraft in the hope of redemption for siding with the U.S. over the last 20 years and being the partners in the death and destruction of over 100,000 Afghans.

The U.S. in its wisdom built an Afghan Army of 300,000 strong and equipped it Western-style but when the push came to a shove, the 'American trained' Afghan soldiers capitulated like a house of cards, or perhaps they did not want to fight their Taliban brethren. The U.S. in its arrogance forgot that Afghans don't need training and even a five-year-old kid is better at handling an automatic weapon than a fully laden American soldier. The Afghans only joined the army to get a salary and over the years many disappeared with their weapons and joined the ranks of the Taliban and yet the Americans kept raising and equipping more Afghan soldiers.

The Afghan leadership that was planted by the United States came to power through rigged elections and with only 5% voter turnout. Fiest Hamid Karzai and later Ashraf Ghani proved to be must corrupt drug peddlers while the U.S. conveniently looked the other way. The so-called Democracy was nothing but a farce and had no public support. The way Ashraf Ghani escaped from Kabul and tried to take suitcases full of dollars shows the lack of credibility of such criminal leaders.

India was allowed a free hand in Afghanistan by the U.S. setting up five consulates and several training centres throughout Afghanistan. Their notorious intelligence agency RAW jointly with Afghanistan's NDS to finance terrorists to launch bomb attacks in Pakistan. The biggest crime was the cold-blooded murder of 165 innocent children of Army Public School, Peshawar by the Indian financed TTP, a criminal organisation of exiled Pakistani Taliban. Mr. Ajit Duval , Modi's National Security Advisor is on record admitting financing the TTP to launch attacks into Pakistan. They also financed the bogus Balochistan Liberation movement. All this under the nose of the American occupiers and no doubt with their blessings. The terrorism supported by the U.S., India and Afghanistan was as bad as if not worse than the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. It is a shame that a country that suffered such massive tragedy had a hand in terrorism in this region.

Many a great power have disappeared over the course of history. The Soviet Union evaporated after its invasion of Afghanistan, it remains to be seen if the U.S. follows suit.

 follows the 

U. S. DEFEATED IN AFGHANISTAN

 

             Doha talks, courtesy DW.com

After spending $2 trillion, losing the life of 2,300 American soldiers, 24,000 injured or maimed, 40,000+ Afghan soldiers dead and many more thousand civilians dead, after spending 20 years in Afghanistan, U.S. is finally cutting and running. It is ironic that to get a safe exit from Afghanistan, the U.S. forces had to negotiate with the same Taliban that George W. Bush and his cronies, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, avowed to kill and eliminate.

U.S. had all but won the war within three months of launching its attack on Afghanistan as Al-Qaeda was either eliminated or hid in the mountains, the Taliban, who were never a party to 9/11 attacks were made the enemy possibly by the U.S. Military Industry establishment to keep the war going, for longer it lasted, the more money they made. Both President George W. Bush and Barak Obama fell into that trap and escalated the war instead of wrapping it up. The credit must be given to President Trump for negotiating a deal with the Taliban and for winding down the war in Afghanistan.

The neighboring countries have suffered a great due to turmoil created in Afghanistan, first by the former Soviet Union and later by the United States. There are close to four million Afghan refugees still living in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion. The conditions have never improved for them to return to home.

U.S. is now leaving in a haste and without an all-essential power-sharing agreement between Taliban and the Afghan Government. If the U.S. completes its withdrawal without such an agreement, there could be turmoil and civil war in Afghanistan once again. The Ashraf Ghani Government is trying to hold on to power and is refusing to come to a power-sharing interim Government, which can then hold elections, and power can be transferred to elected representatives. Mr. Ghani wants to conduct the elections under his authority, the last two such elections held have been highly controversial and led to massive disagreements between him and Mr. Abdullah Abdullah. If there is no agreement, in a few months Taliban will kick out the Kabul Government by force, they have already captured several military bases from the rag-tag Afghan army.

It is essential that U.S. broker a power-sharing agreement and install a Government that represents all factions & tribes in Afghanistan. Trying to seek military bases in Pakistan, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan is a fool"s errand as no country would want to bring the Afghan war to their soil. Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has flatly refused such accommodation and so have all other regional countries. Also, no one is willing to trust the U.S. as they may well use such a base for causing internal strife in the host country (as did Blackwater operatives in Pakistan before, causing bomb blasts and killings on the streets of Lahore in broad daylight), use it for spying on China & Russia. Also, when Pakistan lost nearly 70,000 lives to terrorism as a result of Afghan backlash and its economy suffered $160 billion damage, the U.S. was not much concerned to help the country or provide compensation, while it blew away $2 trillion in Afghanistan like a drunken sailor. The trust deficit is high.

               Courtesy: Getty images

It was foolish to have spent twenty years in Afghanistan, it is now time to make amends and leave Afghanistan with a workable Government acceptable to all sides, otherwise a civil war in Afghanistan will be on U.S. head. Cutting and running under the Taliban protection is cowardly and does not behoove a superpower,

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