And so it begins, U.S. troops start to withdraw from Afghanistan

[TheCount]

And six hundred Special Forces. Specially trained to handle baggage?

Ready for the magic?

20% of troops that were in Afghanistan have left.

20% of 3000


How many special forces were added?

600.

[Swordsmyth]

They are piss poor Troop Transports. makes me question both the Honesty and intent of their actions..

Increased firepower is often used to cover a withdrawal.

[Swordsmyth]

Ready for the magic?

20% of troops that were in Afghanistan have left.

20% of 3000


How many special forces were added?

600.

If 20% have been removed then 1,200 ordinary troops were removed and 600 special forces were brought in to help cover the withdrawal.

[TheCount]

If 20% have been removed then 1,200 ordinary troops were removed and 600 special forces were brought in to help cover the withdrawal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/w...ghanistan.html

3500 in Afghanistan in March

(1000 higher than the 2500 that they bragged about in January)

[Swordsmyth]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/w...ghanistan.html

3500 in Afghanistan in March

(1000 higher than the 2500 that they bragged about in January)

Even if that is an accurate report it changes nothing.
We are leaving and Trump is responsible for us leaving.

[Swordsmyth]

According to a report from The New York Times, US troops are expected to be out of Afghanistan by early to mid-July, well before the September 11th deadline set by President Biden.

Unnamed US officials told the Times that Washington’s allies are also expected to be out by July, although Germany is apparently struggling to keep up the pace. US Central Command on Tuesday said the Afghanistan withdrawal process was about 16 to 25 percent complete.

The US recently handed over Kandahar Airfield to Afghan forces. The Times report said that US fighter jets and other military equipment will start leaving Bagram Air Base in the coming days. Last week, locals told Afghanistan’s Tolo News that the US has shipping truckloads of scrapped equipment out of the Bagram Air Base, which is the largest US military facility in Afghanistan.

Washington’s decision to pull out before September is likely an effort to avoid Taliban attacks on withdrawing troops. President Biden broke the US-Taliban peace deal by pushing back the original May 1st withdrawal deadline. Earlier this month, Tolo News reported that the US and the Taliban were in talks to get foreign troops out by sometime in July. In exchange, the Taliban would participate in a planned Afghan peace summit in Istanbul.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...agon-officials

[AngryCanadian]

According to a report from The New York Times, US troops are expected to be out of Afghanistan by early to mid-July, well before the September 11th deadline set by President Biden.

Unnamed US officials told the Times that Washington’s allies are also expected to be out by July, although Germany is apparently struggling to keep up the pace. US Central Command on Tuesday said the Afghanistan withdrawal process was about 16 to 25 percent complete.

The US recently handed over Kandahar Airfield to Afghan forces. The Times report said that US fighter jets and other military equipment will start leaving Bagram Air Base in the coming days. Last week, locals told Afghanistan’s Tolo News that the US has shipping truckloads of scrapped equipment out of the Bagram Air Base, which is the largest US military facility in Afghanistan.

Washington’s decision to pull out before September is likely an effort to avoid Taliban attacks on withdrawing troops. President Biden broke the US-Taliban peace deal by pushing back the original May 1st withdrawal deadline. Earlier this month, Tolo News reported that the US and the Taliban were in talks to get foreign troops out by sometime in July. In exchange, the Taliban would participate in a planned Afghan peace summit in Istanbul.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...agon-officials

Probably not all of the forces.

[enhanced_deficit]

Not clear if this would acclerate or slowdown withdrawal of personnel:

US Afghan embassy in lockdown amid covid crisis. Call for mandatory Vax for US gov employees


AFSA which represents the US diplomatic corps has calld on Prez Biden to make vax mandatory for all US gov employees unless there is medical or religious exception. There is reported 2400% jump in covid infections in a month in Afghanistan housing tens of thousands of Americans currently in various military, contractor, diplomatic positions. UN Office suspects the Delta variant, first detected in India, could be responsible for the recent spike in Afghan cases.



USA Today

COVID-19 surge in Afghanistan hits US embassy, prompting lockdown, onsite wards

COVID infection rates have surged in Afghanistan by 2400% over the past month, according to the International Federation of Red Cross.
21 hours ago

WASHINGTON – A dangerous surge in COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan has gripped the U.S. embassy in Kabul, forcing an immediate lockdown and the creation of temporary, on-site COVID-19 wards to care for oxygen-dependent patients, according to an internal memo.

"COVID-19 is surging in the Mission. 114 of our colleagues now have COVID and are in isolation; one has died, and several have been medevaced," reads the notice from Shane Pierce, an employee in the embassy's health unit.

His memo says that intensive care units at a U.S. military hospital "are at full capacity," triggering the need to set up temporary on-site units for staff who need oxygen.

The outbreak has prompted the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the U.S. diplomatic corps, to call on President Joe Biden to require all U.S. government employees overseas to be vaccinated, unless they have medical or religious exceptions.

"This is the most serious outbreak (at a U.S. diplomatic facility), and I believe it’s the first time, at least recently, that we’ve had an entire embassy on lockdown," said Eric Rubin, a former ambassador to Bulgaria and head of the foreign service association.

"This is such a truly worrying and sad situation that we feel necessary to go public and just to say, 'Enough,'" he said. "It should be a condition of employment. People should not be allowed to endanger the lives of fellow citizens, their fellow employees."

The State Department press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the mandatory vaccine proposal.

Earlier on Thursday,Ned Price, the State Department's chief spokesman, noted the surge in cases at the embassy in Kabul coincides with "an intense third wave of COIVD-19 cases" across Afghanistan.

COVID infection rates have surged in Afghanistan by 2,400% over the past month, according to the International Federation of Red Cross

usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/06/17/covid-afghanistan-us-embassy-kabul-hit-virus-third-wave/7729552002/



Coronavirus Breaks Out at US Embassy in Afghanistan

June 17, 2021

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) warned in a statement that infection rates in Afghanistan have climbed by 2,400 percent in the past month. It noted 34 percent of tests returned positive results last week, pointing to many thousands of undiagnosed infections.

“Afghanistan is at a crisis point in the battle to contain COVID-19 as hospital beds are full to capacity in the capital Kabul and in many areas,” an IFRC statement quoted Nilab Mobarez, acting president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, as saying.

“This surge is fast spiraling out of control adding huge pressures on our fragile health system and millions of people living in poverty,” said Mobarez. “We fear that we are just a heartbeat away from the kind of horror that we have already seen in countries like India and Nepal.”

FILE - An Afghan security officer stands guard at the Green Zone, which is home to a number of foreign embassies, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 25, 2021.

India’s COVID-19 outbreak has broken records for cases and deaths, though daily case numbers have been declining there since mid-May. But the Indian variant has spread to neighboring Nepal, where it is causing massive infections and straining a less-resourced health system.

India recorded 29.7 million cases and 382,000 deaths while Nepal reported 614,000 and 8,558 as of Thursday.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs suspected Thursday the Delta variant, first detected in India, could be responsible for the recent spike in Afghan cases.

“While Afghanistan lacks in-country facilities to test for the variant that originated in India, concern over the variant’s spread is high as many of the patients hospitalized over the last four weeks have a history of recently returning from India or having contact with people who have,” the agency said in a statement.
Meanwhile, hospitals around Afghanistan have refused to accept new coronavirus patients, citing a lack of beds and oxygen shortages.

The global agency was working with Afghan authorities to provide more resources and try and boost medical oxygen production, said Necephor Mghendi, the head of the Afghanistan country delegation for IFRC.

“More international support is needed to help win this race against this virus, so we can save thousands of lives,” he said.

Afghan officials and aid groups say Afghanistan is also dealing with a vaccine shortfall exacerbated by a high level of hesitancy.

“Less than half a percent” of the country’s estimated 35 million population has so far been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to IFCR.

voanews.com/south-central-asia/coronavirus-breaks-out-us-embassy-afghanistan



Potentially Related

June 19, 2021
U.S.-led military forces in Afghanistan abruptly cancel NATO flag-lowering ceremony

[Swordsmyth]

The U.S. military appears just days away from completing its withdrawal from Afghanistan, well ahead of the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden to end America's longest war, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The withdrawal of troops and equipment from Afghanistan would not include forces that will remain to protect diplomats at the U.S. embassy and potentially assist securing Kabul airport.

U.S. officials have told Reuters that embassy presence could be around 650 troops.

The U.S. military stopped publicly detailing the pace of its withdrawal after it was more than 50 percent complete earlier in June.

More at: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...es-2021-06-29/

[Swordsmyth]

After nearly 20 years, the U.S. military left Bagram Airfield, the epicenter of its war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, two U.S. officials said Friday.

The airfield was handed over to the Afghan National Security and Defense Force in its entirety, they said on condition they not be identified because they were not authorized to release the information to the media.

One of the officials also said the U.S. top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, “still retains all the capabilities and authorities to protect the forces.”

The withdrawal from Bagram Airfield is the clearest indication that the last of the 2,500-3,500 U.S. troops have left Afghanistan or are nearing a departure, months ahead of President Joe Biden's promise that they would be gone by Sept. 11.

It was clear soon after the mid-April announcement that the U.S. was ending its “forever war,” that the departure of U.S. soldiers and their estimated 7,000 NATO allies would be nearer to July 4, when America celebrates its Independence Day.

Most NATO soldiers have already quietly exited as of this week. Announcements from several countries analyzed by The Associated Press show that a majority of European troops has now left with little ceremony — a stark contrast to the dramatic and public show of force and unity when NATO allies lined up to back the U.S. invasion in 2001.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/us-hands-bagr...043528730.html

[acptulsa]

So, Biden might do what Trump didn't have permission and the balls to do?

Or do you think the military is still following Trump's orders?

Are you trying to spin this into something other than what it is, namely proof that Trump's foreign policy was dictated to him by the same people who dictated to Obama and dictate to Biden--a seamless continuation without interruption?

Trying to give credit to a president who has been out of office for nearly six months is a pretty blatant attempt at spin, even for you. That ship sailed already. Get over it.

[oyarde]

Should be a celebration for America . US hands over Bagram Air Base to Afghan Security Forces . Not so much of a celebration for free Afghanis as one quarter of the 421 districts have been taken back under taliban control since the US withdrawal began . While this should be expected you'd think after 20 years the Afghans would have a plan on what areas they wanted to push back in and which they would concede. According to one General there that plan never happened so I'd say at this point they better get busy if the want to save the cities and capitals .

[oyarde]

In other news , Bagram Air Force Base looted by dozens of looters after the Americans departed as the Afghans had no plan in place to secure and occupy the base. Afghan Security Forces have now moved in . Fed still buying 120 billion per month , unemployment up 5.9 percent from 5.8 percent and US has pledged 4 billion per yr to Afghan Security Forces through 2024.

[enhanced_deficit]

After nearly 20 years, the U.S. military left Bagram Airfield, the epicenter of its war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaida perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America, two U.S. officials said Friday.
...

20 years of latest hot war but almost 40 years span covers full overt/proxy US military involvement there. Media experts' customary analyses on the return for lost tens of thousands of American lives/limbs in blood & $Trillions in treasure will be splashed across media for a week or so after marking the historic milestone of leaving behind about a 1000 US troops (plus few thousand American contractors) but no guarantee if any lasting lessons will be learnt.



Afghanistan: Remembering the Long, Long War We Would Rather Forget

A now declassified memorandum that National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski sent to Carter on Dec. 26 offers a rare historical example in which it is possible to trace the origins of major consequences to a single document. In it, Brzezinski, the anti-Soviet son of a Polish diplomat, misused history by claiming that if Moscow succeeded “the age-long dream of direct access to the Indian Ocean will have been fulfilled.” The fall of the Shah of Iran in January had enflamed the Middle East into what Brzezinski termed an “arc of crisis;” Carter was facing a tough reelection challenge from Republican front-runner Ronald Reagan and badly needed to reverse the perception that his foreign policy was failing. The President began to hyperbolize that Moscow’s aggression in Afghanistan “would threaten the security of all nations.”

Determined to deliver the Soviet Union its own Vietnam, Brzezinski advised the president that it was essential that the Afghan resistance continue. Carter approved a covert action finding that increased the program, code-named Operation Cyclone, to $50 million. He took to calling the mujahedeen “Freedom Fighters” (a label that Ronald Reagan and Charlie Wilson later appropriated as they poured support into the program). Brzezinski outlined four courses of action in the Dec. 26 memo, each of which Carter approved. They would have enduring and fateful consequences.

In Afghanistan, the purposes of Saudi Arabia, jihad against the atheistic foreign invader, and the United States, the Cold War against the Soviet Union, overlapped. With the Inter-Services Intelligence as executive agent, this intersection brought the most radicalized Islamists among the Afghan mujahedeen into association with the Afghan Arabs, including Osama bin Laden.

Defeat of the Soviet superpower in Afghanistan was the inspiration for 9/11, which bin Laden organized from sanctuary the Taliban gave al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Most of the attackers were Saudi, while the Wahhabi program thrives throughout the Muslim world today. The Afghan Arabs were also the model for the foreign fighters who flowed to Iraq and Syria, first under al-Qaeda in Iraq and then under the self-proclaimed Islamic State. No one responsible for Operation Cyclone realized at the time they were sowing the wind.

How A Quest To Save Soviet Jews Changed The World


Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman speaks at an award ceremony for immigrant scientists at Tel Aviv University on Oct. 26. Lieberman is one of the Soviet Jewish emigres who moved to Israel.

On Dec. 12, 1987, a quarter-million people gathered in Washington, D.C., on the eve of a historic summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They came from all over the country to a rally aimed at freeing Jews in what was then the Soviet Union.

Among the speakers was George H.W. Bush, who was vice president at the time. In his speech, he echoed the words of Reagan at the Berlin Wall, "Mr. Gorbachev," he said, "Let these people go. Let them go."
Author Gal Beckerman explores that moment, and that movement, in his new book When They Come For Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.
He tells NPR's Guy Raz that the day after the rally, Reagan stood with Gorbachev in the Oval Office and asked if he'd seen footage of the demonstration.

"Gorbachev kind of shook it off, but it was clear this sent a very strong message," Beckerman says.

A History Of Persecution
Jews had been persecuted in the Soviet Union through much of the 20th century. In 1970s Moscow, a city with hundreds of thousands of Jews, there was only one synagogue. Beckerman says there was no way to become a rabbi or even eat kosher food.

Desperate To Flee
While Soviet Jews could apply to leave the country, the vast majority were denied. They became known as "refuseniks" and were often unable to get a job.
"You became almost a pariah inside of Soviet society and it led to a whole series of bad things that could happen to you," he says. "You'd lose your job, but then it was illegal to be without a job -- you would be accused of parasitism. And then you suddenly had people who were former world renowned scientists working as stokers, shoveling coal or elevator operators, because the government would assign you to a job."

Beckerman says many of those who were desperate to flee were Zionists -- they wanted to go to Israel. In the summer of 1970, a group from Latvia was determined to make it there any way they could.
They decided to hijack a plane.

The group found a 12-seater scheduled to fly to Sweden. They planned to take over during a stopover in Finland.
But the plan never came to fruition. The KGB tackled and arrested some of the group on the tarmac the day they planned to hijack the plane.
"Just in the Soviet Union, if you had two people involved in anything, you could be sure that one of them was somehow talking to the KGB," Beckerman says.
However, he says, the group wrote a sort of "suicide note."
"They wanted to make sure that if they were caught or killed in the process, the world would know somehow why they did this. The Soviets couldn't just paint them as criminals who were trying to hijack a plane."
After the arrest, the Soviets seized the opportunity to paint the Latvians as religious extremists. The knew "they could put on a very large show trial and show the world in fact, that these were not these idealistic Zionists that they said they were, but Zionism was really a mask for 'hooliganism," Beckerman says.
And the end of a swift trial, the judge sentenced the group's two leaders to death. Beckerman says the verdict reverberated across the world.

The Effect On U.S. Policy
As the movement gained more prominence, it began to influence the way the United States formulated its foreign policy. At the forefront of the shift was a senator for Washington state -- Henry "Scoop" Jackson.
Beckerman says Jackson's interest in the movement was triggered in August 1972 when the Soviets started to let out some Jews, but was requiring them to pay a "diploma tax" for education they had received from the Soviet state. This bothered Jackson especially because, at the same time, they were involved with the U.S. in trade talks and seeking so-called "preferred trading status."
"Henry Jackson said, 'You know what, no. If they want these things -- these goodies from the U.S. -- they have to do something as well. And what we want from them in exchange is for them to change something about their internal policy that's making Soviet Jews in particular suffer,' " Beckerman says.
Over the next decade, those sentiments had a profound influence on American foreign policy.
"Every time Gorbachev would walk into meeting with Reagan by the mid-'80s, the first thing Reagan would do -- and we see this in memoirs and oral histories -- is Reagan would pull out a piece of paper with names of Soviet Jews who had been refused visas or had been somehow sent to prison for their activism and he said, 'Well if you want to talk, first we have to discuss these names,'" Beckerman says.
Eventually emigration restrictions eased and Soviet Jews were allowed to leave in larger numbers. Among those who left are Avigdor Lieberman, now Israel's foreign minister, and Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google.


Jihad with US-Arms – The Soviet–Afghan War

The moment the Soviet Union inserted itself in the Afghan Civil War, they started a domino-like spiral of violence that continues even to this day nearly 40 years later. On one side of the situation, the Soviets were never able to assert and gain control over the huge country.

On the other side of the problem, the United States, via CIA operatives and neighboring Arab countries, supported guerrilla fighters by delivering arms to support their resistance efforts.

Naming themselves the Mujahideen, the resistance fighting militias considered themselves embroiled in a Holy War against the invading communist infidels. Even after the Red Army pulled out of the country Afghanistan remained in a continued state of chaos.

The Taliban rose to and seized power in the war-torn nation. Following the events of 9/11 NATO forces invaded the embattled country making roughly the same mistakes the Russians did a generation earlier.

The Soviet–Afghan War lasted nearly a decade from December 1979 to February 1989. The Mujahideen resistance fighters fought a war of attrition against the Soviet Army and allied Afghan forces. In all, approximately 850,000 to 1.5 million civilians were killed over the decade long conflict and millions of other Afghans were forced to flee their homeland as refugees. Most resettled in Pakistan or Iran.
warhistoryonline.com/featured/jihad-with-us-arms-the-soviet-afghanwar.html

1980s: Reagan's MAGA Revolution
USA prints extremist textbooks to radicalize Afghan children




"Every time Gorbachev would walk into meeting with Reagan by the mid-'80s, the first thing Reagan would do -- and we see this in memoirs and oral histories -- is Reagan would pull out a piece of paper with names of Soviet Jews who had been refused visas or had been somehow sent to prison for their activism and he said, 'Well if you want to talk, first we have to discuss these names,'" Beckerman says.

The former Soviet citizens who flooded into Israel decades ago have changed the country's demographics.

The Soviet–Afghan War lasted nearly a decade from December 1979 to February 1989.
The Mujahideen resistance fighters fought a war of attrition against the Soviet Army and allied Afghan forces. In all, approximately 850,000 to 1.5 million civilians were killed over the decade long conflict and millions of other Afghans were forced to flee their homeland as refugees.

Related

Reckless Putin: "US nurtured Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, supported terrorists in Chechnya"




The Immorality of Leaving Iraq and Afghanistan
By Dennis Prager
https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/...dennis-prager/



From:
Biden says no more questions on Afghanistan, wants to ‘talk about happy things’
July 2, 2021

[Swordsmyth]

So, Biden might do what Trump didn't have permission and the balls to do?

Or do you think the military is still following Trump's orders?

Are you trying to spin this into something other than what it is, namely proof that Trump's foreign policy was dictated to him by the same people who dictated to Obama and dictate to Biden--a seamless continuation without interruption?

Trying to give credit to a president who has been out of office for nearly six months is a pretty blatant attempt at spin, even for you. That ship sailed already. Get over it.

Trump started the process and forced it through far enough that it couldn't be stopped in spite of being fought every step of the way.
Don't insult our intelligence by pretending the deepstate wanted this.

[Swordsmyth]

Should be a celebration for America . US hands over Bagram Air Base to Afghan Security Forces . Not so much of a celebration for free Afghanis as one quarter of the 421 districts have been taken back under taliban control since the US withdrawal began . While this should be expected you'd think after 20 years the Afghans would have a plan on what areas they wanted to push back in and which they would concede. According to one General there that plan never happened so I'd say at this point they better get busy if the want to save the cities and capitals .

It's almost as if their globalist friends didn't plan for this.

[acptulsa]

Trump started the process and forced it through far enough that it couldn't be stopped in spite of being fought every step of the way.
Don't insult our intelligence by pretending the deepstate wanted this.

I'm not the one here insulting people's intelligence.

I admit I have considered insulting your intelligence in the past, but that prey is very, very elusive.

[shakey1]

The U.S. military appears just days away from completing its withdrawal from Afghanistan, well ahead of the Sept. 11 deadline set by President Joe Biden to end America's longest war, U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Joeblow wanted to make it an even 20yrs… would only serve to highlight the utter failure of this venture. At this point, good just to be getting out… hopefully to never return. History taught us nothing.

[devil21]

Joeblow wanted to make it an even 20yrs… would only serve to highlight the utter failure of this venture. At this point, good just to be getting out… hopefully to never return. History taught us nothing.

Afghanistan has been turned over to China. Mission accomplished. Americans were just the tools to do the heavy lifting and pay the bills ("military men are dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns of foreign policy", as Kissinger was quoted as saying). It was actually a smashing success, not an utter failure, but I guess that depends on whether you're an elite or the mother of a dead 22 year old soldier.

This official Afghan government website details it very thoroughly:
https://recca.af/?page_id=2077

http://recca.af/?p=1909




https://www.timesofisrael.com/machia...sh-philosophy/

(worth clicking link to see the photo slide show)
-----------------------

Kissinger's secret 1971 trip to China
https://china.usc.edu/getting-beijin...cret-1971-trip

Visit was 50 years ago as of this month, July 2021.

-------------------------------
To @acptulsa's point:




Ever present....

[Pauls' Revere]

China prepares to fill void left by US.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-program.html

China makes its move on Afghanistan: Beijing prepares to fill the vacuum left by Biden's plan for US military exit from the nation with $62B investment plan for its 'Belt and Road' program

As American troops left their main military base in Afghanistan on Friday, marking a symbolic end to the longest war in U.S. history, China is now preparing to enter to war-torn country to essentially fill the vacuum left by U.S. and NATO troops.

Authorities in Kabul are considering extending a $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

First launched in 2013 by Chinese president Xi Jinping, and written into the Chinese constitution in 2017, it is billed by Beijing officials as a global infrastructure development fund which aims to better connect China to the rest of the world.

[Swordsmyth]

Afghanistan has been turned over to China. Mission accomplished. Americans were just the tools to do the heavy lifting and pay the bills ("military men are dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns of foreign policy", as Kissinger was quoted as saying). It was actually a smashing success, not an utter failure, but I guess that depends on whether you're an elite or the mother of a dead 22 year old soldier.

This official Afghan government website details it very thoroughly:
https://recca.af/?page_id=2077

http://recca.af/?p=1909




https://www.timesofisrael.com/machia...sh-philosophy/

(worth clicking link to see the photo slide show)
-----------------------

Kissinger's secret 1971 trip to China
https://china.usc.edu/getting-beijin...cret-1971-trip

Visit was 50 years ago as of this month, July 2021.

-------------------------------
To @acptulsa's point:




Ever present....

China is going to collapse long before they can make any use of Afghanistan.
And if they try to use Afghanistan the Afghans will help them collapse.

Nice try and making a good thing Trump did into a bad thing but it just won't work.

[Swordsmyth]

China prepares to fill void left by US.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-program.html

China makes its move on Afghanistan: Beijing prepares to fill the vacuum left by Biden's plan for US military exit from the nation with $62B investment plan for its 'Belt and Road' program

As American troops left their main military base in Afghanistan on Friday, marking a symbolic end to the longest war in U.S. history, China is now preparing to enter to war-torn country to essentially fill the vacuum left by U.S. and NATO troops.

Authorities in Kabul are considering extending a $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

First launched in 2013 by Chinese president Xi Jinping, and written into the Chinese constitution in 2017, it is billed by Beijing officials as a global infrastructure development fund which aims to better connect China to the rest of the world.

Good, this will hasten their collapse.

[oyarde]

Free Afghanis fleeing taliban to Tajikistan are the rumors. Taliban now control 26 of 28 border districts and the roads are also the rumors. Russian consulate in Mazar i Sharif will be closed.

[oyarde]

No word yet on taliban wuhan plague or vaccines. Hopefully @Danke can give us an update from his chicom contacts.

[Pauls' Revere]

Indeed you are right about that one, not mention the Taliban are the same forces and fighters which had driven out the soviet union/Russian troops in the 80s. They were the mujahideen fighters which the west armed and supported agaisnt a moderate Russian backed government in afghanistan who gave women rights among other issues.

Its kinda of ironic seeing the west being defeated by the very thing they created and armed.

"But they are just moderate rebels"

^yep^ and Osama Bin laden was funded and supported by USA & CIA when he was with the Mujahideen.

https://woldcnews.com/883341/how-the...ama-bin-laden/

During in the 1970s, when the Russia was the biggest threat to America and radical Islam was not as a concern of the USA’s, the USA began funding and training Islamic militants to fight our Russian enemies in Afghanistan.

These militants, known as the mujahideen would rebel the Russians out of Afghanistan and later become the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

One of the most prominent members of he mujahideen was a wealthy son of a Saudi Arabian businessman named Osama Bin Laden.

National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski visited Afganistan in 1979 and met with Bin Laden and even took a picture with him. Brzezinski would tell the mujahideen

and U.S.A. funded and supported Bin Laden during the Afghan war.

Former British Foreign secretary, Robin Cook said:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

Several other authors, journalists and statesmen have all made the claim that Bin Laden was funded, armed and trained by the CIA to fight off the Russians.

After Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981, U.S. funding of the mujahideen increased significantly and CIA Paramilitary Officers played a big role in training, arming and sometimes even leading mujahideen forces.

The CIA trained the mujahideen in many of the tactics Al Qaeda is known for today, such as car bombs, assassinations and other acts that would be considered terrorism today.

The U.S.A. would fund Gulbuddin Hekmatyar a mujahideen leader and alleged heroin dealer who worked closely with Bin Laden. Hekmaytyar and his political party/paramilitary group would receive more than $600 million from the USA. Author, Alfred McCoy, would claim that the CIA supported Hekmatyar in his illicit heroin trade to allow him to fund the mujahideen.Like Bin Laden, Hekmatyar has also become an enemy of the U.S., waging a war against coalition forces in Afghanistan after 2001.

America must learn from the foreign policy mistakes of our past. These mistakes have lead to the creation of our enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noreaga, and Osama Bin Laden. The enemy of our enemy is not always our friend, most often they become our enemies too.

[oyarde]

Russian consulate and Afghan army fleeing for their lives. I mean really , who wants to be a POW to the taliban ? $#@!ing nobody .

[Firestarter]

During in the 1970s, when the Russia was the biggest threat to America and radical Islam was not as a concern of the USA’s, the USA began funding and training Islamic militants to fight our Russian enemies in Afghanistan.

These militants, known as the mujahideen would rebel the Russians out of Afghanistan and later become the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Don't forget about the heroin...

The Mujahideen that later evolved into the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were forced to pay the CIA for the arms, and they could only do so by growing poppy.
Afghanistan produced about 100 tons of opium annually in the 1970s. By 1989-1990, that amount of opium had become 2,000 tons a year, which was already about 75% of the world’s illicit opium trade.

Drugs-profits-for-Oil-wars

[Pauls' Revere]

Don't forget about the heroin...


Drugs-profits-for-Oil-wars

That's right!, thank you, yeah Osama Bin Laden's boss was a heroin dealer with the CIA until he was whacked and that put Osama in charge.

[enhanced_deficit]

...
America must learn from the foreign policy mistakes of our past. These mistakes have lead to the creation of our enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noreaga, and Osama Bin Laden. The enemy of our enemy is not always our friend, most often they become our enemies too.

Don't forget about the heroin...


Drugs-profits-for-Oil-wars

Grooming and feeding snakes is risky business. Hopefully our alpha foreign policy thinkers have realized that now.

[enhanced_deficit]

Afghanistan has been turned over to China. Mission accomplished. Americans were just the tools to do the heavy lifting and pay the bills ("military men are dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns of foreign policy", as Kissinger was quoted as saying). It was actually a smashing success, not an utter failure, but I guess that depends on whether you're an elite or the mother of a dead 22 year old soldier.

This official Afghan government website details it very thoroughly:
https://recca.af/?page_id=2077

http://recca.af/?p=1909




https://www.timesofisrael.com/machia...sh-philosophy/

(worth clicking link to see the photo slide show)
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Kissinger's secret 1971 trip to China
https://china.usc.edu/getting-beijin...cret-1971-trip

Visit was 50 years ago as of this month, July 2021.

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To @acptulsa's point:




Ever present....

That highlighted quote sounds too incredible, did the famous advisor of numerous Presidents really say that...