Thursday, August 2, 2018

Is Trump ending the Afghanistan war?

From the SpookyWeather Blog:
"US and Taliban officials met in Qatar last week to gently move toward ceasefire and possibly peace talks. Meanwhile a US government report on US spending on Afghan reconstruction has found more than $15 billion wasted in just the past 11 years! Someone got rich, many more are poorer. And many are dead. For what?" - Ron Paul, Liberty Report 
Is Trump ending the war? If the USA withdraws it's likely the Government in Kabul will not last too long. Some sort of power sharing agreement will be necessary in order to diminish the chance of casualties. If the Taliban do take over the entire country then one must hope that it is done with the minimum of fighting. 
Remember, if you believe the official account of 911, it was not the Taliban that attacked the USA but Al Qaeda. The Taliban even offered to hand over Osama Bin Laden provided the US supplied proof of his involvement in the 2001 attack on New York City. In the end the US didn't supply any evidence and simply invaded the country. And rather than withdraw after successfully flushing out Al Qaeda elements, they stayed and fought against the Taliban. http://spookyweather.blogspot.com/2018/08/war-is-racket-after-17-years-and.html
A few things...
On October 7, less than one month after the September 11 attacks, the U.S., aided by the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries including several from the NATO alliance, initiated military action, bombing Taliban and Al-Qaeda-related camps.[174][175] The stated intent of military operations was to remove the Taliban from power, and prevent the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations.[176]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban#Coalition_attackhttps://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2001/10/mil-011007-usia01.htm
So, fighting the Taliban was a stated objective.

Regardless, the mess that would be left in Afghanistan being spoke of here, is one reason why I have been on Trump's side in trying to stabilize the country before leaving...


If the Taliban, who are very bad guys (reason 2) who admitted sheltering bin Laden, take control of the entire country, then the country will suffer more and the stated goal of the war will be lost.

As I've stated many times, just because the evidence suggests that rogue elements of US and other international intelligence agencies were involved in 9/11, it doesn't mean bin Laden and Al-Qaeda hijackers weren't involved. To put it another way, there is evidence that bin Laden was deeply involved in 9/11, but was allowed to succeed, and had his results amplified, via complicit international government connected individuals and insiders.

With reports that there is "Growing evidence that CIA’s John Brennan is a Wahhabist convert," one must wonder what percentage there might be of inside 9/11 elements that weren't trying to find excuses to bomb Muslim extremists, but were simply on their side! This would certainly be an alternative way of explaining reports of bin Laden and his cohorts being allowed to escape, beyond the oft used idea that they needed him as a Boogeyman.
Bin Laden's Tora Bora escape, just months after 9/11 - bbc.com  
As they moved across Afghanistan pursuing Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, British teams discovered plans for a follow-up attack to 9/11, according to CIA officer Gary Berntsen:
Only a few months after 9/11, American troops located Osama Bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan - so how was he able to evade them?...
As members of the British Special Boat Service (SBS) team listened in to conversations on a captured short wave radio, they heard a voice they believed to be their target. 
Two of the team spotted a tall figure in a camouflage jacket moving with a 50-man protective detail, who went into a cave through a hidden entrance. 
Only a few months after the 11 September 2001 attacks, Osama Bin Laden seemed to be cornered in the mountains of Afghanistan, close to the Pakistani border. 
Tora Bora promised to be his final stand. So how did he escape?... 
Berntsen remains angry. "The US military spends a trillion dollars a year on defence. Why is it that they could not get forces into that area? It's a ridiculous statement that they couldn't get people there. 
"We had the marines actually down in Kandahar. They could have been lifted up there. If there is a will there is a way." 
A Delta Force officer asked for mines to be laid at the back of the mountains to close off a potential escape route to Pakistan. This was also denied.  
"We don't use mines that way," argues Myers, a view which is disputed by some Special Forces individuals involved. Some believe the decision was the result of a commitment made after pressure from the British. 
The 'airlift of evil'  nbcnews.com
Last Saturday, The New York Times picked up the scent, quoting Northern Alliance soldiers in a Page 1 story describing a two-day airlift by Pakistani aircraft, complete with witnesses describing groups of armed men awaiting evacuation at the airfield, then still in Taliban hands.

Another report, this in the Times of London, quotes an alliance soldier angrily denouncing the flights, which he reasonably assumed were conducted with America’s blessing. 
“We had decided to kill all of them, and we are not happy with America for letting the planes come,” said the soldier, Mahmud Shah... 
Something is up. It certainly appears to any reasonable observer that aircraft of some kind or another were taking off and landing in Kunduz’s final hours in Taliban hands. Among the many questions that grow out of this reality:

Was the passenger manifest on these aircraft limited to Pakistani military and intelligence men, or did it include some of the more prominent zealots Pakistan contributed to the ranks of the Taliban and al-Qaida?
Also, as detailed thoroughly at the SpookyWeather blog, questions still remain as it pertains to the official story regarding bin Laden's death.

As far as the Taliban's offer to turn over bin Laden... shouldn't they have done so because he was already a wanted terrorist before 9/11 and would they really have accepted any type of 9/11 evidence that was put before them? These are fair questions.


Now as to the Iraq war... that was a total mistake that I never supported. Trump was against it very early on.

Bush: Saddam was not responsible for 9/11 - George Bush last night admitted that Saddam Hussein had no hand in the 9/11 terror attacks, but he asked Americans to support a war in Iraq that he said was the defining struggle of our age. 
"I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks," Mr Bush said. "The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat. My administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat - and after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take. "The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/12/september11.usa2
Not so much Georgie boy!

Intelligence files support claims Iraq invasion helped spawn Isis:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/intelligence-files-support-claims-iraq-invasion-helped-spawn-isis

BLOWBACK: HOW ISIS WAS CREATED BY THE U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ:

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/29/isis-iraq-war-islamic-state-blowback/

Preventing Saddam from getting nukes (or whatever else) with weapons inspectors and airstrikes if need be would have been better than ISIS me thinks.

Trump's friend Roger Stone thinks there is nothing that can ever be done militarily to prevent Afghanistan from being a mess when we leave, he sadly may be right, but I don't fault Trump for trying. A sad situation all around.