2 March 2020 12:29 am Views - 919
The US invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 over Taliban’s refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden -the architect of the 9/11 attack to the US- and to dismantle al-Qaeda and its bases in Afghanistan. The invasion aimed at removing Taliban from power for support to bin Laden, even though it was well-known that though Taliban was a violent group inside Afghanistan, it was’nt involved in international terrorism against the US or the West.
Though initially successful in toppling the Taliban in 2011, the war continued for years. The Taliban meanwhile regrouped, and currently hold sway over half the country. And last year the BBC reported Taliban were active across 70% of Afghanistan
On Saturday, February 29, the United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan as a means of extracting US troops out of Afghanistan, bringing to mind the infamous US pullout from Vietnam on March 29, 1973 when the last US soldiers were forced to flee that country. By Saturday’s ‘peace agreement’ the US is accepting, that it (US) is unable to defeat the Afghan people and are suing for peace
In attendance at the signing of the Peace Agreement was US Foreign Secretary Mike Pompeo smiling benignly, as the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed the document at the Qatari capital Doha... ‘eating crow’ to use an American phrase..
The wheel has turned full circle the US has been militarily defeated, and once again as it was in Vietnam 27 years ago and readies itself to pull its troops out of another country it invaded. As in Vietnam, as the US withdraws from Afghanistan it leaves yet another land it invaded in devastation.
The Watson Institute at Brown University says 58,000 security personnel and 42,000 opposition combatants have been killed. The report adds around 157,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan war since 2001. More than 43,000 of those killed have been civilians.
According to the ‘Middle East Institute’ during the recently concluded war launched by the US against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, estimates are that over 100,000 Afghans have lost their lives and many more have been disabled. An Afghan presidential commission has determined that military operations in the Kandahar area alone, have caused more than $100 million in damage to homes and farms in a six month period.
According to reports the Afghan war has cost the US $975 billion, including estimates for 2019. In addition as of July 7, 2018, there have been 2,440 US military deaths in the War in Afghanistan. 1,856 of these deaths have been the result of hostile action. 20,320 American service members have also been wounded in action during the war.[1] In addition, there were 1,720 US civilian contractor fatalities
In Vietnam, the US record in the killing of civillians is even higher with Wikipedia reporting some 365,000 Vietnamese civilians were estimated by one source to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement.
The US also sprayed Agent Orange over Vietnam -the most toxic molecule known to science- it was sprayed during the American prolonged military campaign in that country. The contamination persists. No redress has been offered, no compensation. The superpower that spread the toxin has done nothing to combat the medical and environmental catastrophe that is overwhelming that country.
With the fall of Saigon imminent on April 21, 1975, - a bitter and tearful President Thieu resigned. During a 90-minute TV speech to the people of South Vietnam, Thieu read from the letter sent by Nixon in 1972 pledging “severe retaliatory action” if South Vietnam was threatened.
Referring to the US he said “The United States has not respected its promises. It is inhumane. It is untrustworthy. It is irresponsible.”
A summary of US intervention worldwide.
Yes, it is this same US that is charging and condemning weaker nations like Sri Lanka of human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity!