WHILE you are reading this, dear readers, it is likely that the Taliban have full control of Afghanistan, after about two decades of American occupation. It has lived up to its name as the ‘graveyard of empires’ from the Romans, the British, the Soviet and now, the US.
It is another military, political and diplomatic disaster for US Imperialism that is actually a foregone conclusion from the very start.
The US and its Western minions invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, out of spite and revenge for the September 11, 2001 (9/11) terrorist attack on the US mainland as they accused the Taliban of giving aid and shelter to the Al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama Bin Laden, who masterminded 9/11.
In short, Afghanistan was invaded not because US Imperialism wants to help the Afghans have a taste of “democracy” and the Western way of life (this “justification” would come much, much later, as an afterthought).
Of course, the 2001 invasion would not have happened had US Imperialism did not coddle, arm and supported the Taliban from its inception after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979.
Along this line, the Philippines and the rest of the world would not have experienced the violence of the ISIS, Al-Qaeda and the Abu Sayyaf (ASG) had the US also not decided to arm, finance and support them as added “Islamic fighters” against the Soviet.
Yes, dear readers, the Americans are like Dr. Frankenstein who created monsters that ended up attacking their own “master.”
But the US invaded “half-heartedly” since, after driving out the Taliban from power, the Americans, instead of helping the Afghans, are already focused on another military misadventure—the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Pres. Saddam Hussein—despite knowing that Saddam and Iraq have nothing to do with 9/11.
So eager was Pres. George Bush to smash Iraq and remove Saddam that they had to invent that fiction of ‘WMD’ (weapons of mass destruction) of Iraq in order to justify another military invasion. In the process, US Imperialism and again, its Western minions, destroyed one of the world’s oldest civilizations. But so what, right Uncle Sam?
In other words, lacking any moral ascendancy at all as to why it has invaded and destroyed to ancient countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, the defeat of US Imperialism, although it took some 20 years to happen, is a foregone conclusion.
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US State secretary, Anthony Blinken, when interviewed last Monday, August 16, 2021, over the unfolding events in Afghanistan and where US military helicopters are seen hovering over Kabul airport to evacuate US embassy personnel, resented the comparison between that “rescue operation” and the similarly hasty and embarrassing departure of US embassy personnel in Saigon in 1975.
The most iconic picture of that event was of course a Huey helicopter atop a CIA building in Saigon bringing out the last remnants of American embassy personnel as the People’s Army of Vietnam entered, take possession of the city and declared the reunification of the entire country– after nearly 25 years of waging war against occupation and rule by Western Imperialism (first against the French and then the Americans).
Blinken may have resented the comparison but, yes Jose, the images at Kabul airport clearly captured what happened to US Imperialism in Saigon 46 years ago. Like a beaten dog, it left hastily, in embarrassment, and with its tail behind its legs.
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In all instances of American aggression against other countries, its defeat is a foregone conclusion. The struggle may be long and bloody, but US defeat is inevitable.
The US defeat is inevitable in the end simply because of this:
The US invades and interferes in the affairs of other countries not because it is driven by a higher, noble, moral obligation, to humanity.
The US invades and interferes because it wants to. Period.
And such hubris anchored on sheer arrogance cannot last. It would have to pay a heavy price at the end of the day as we have seen before and as we have just seen in Afghanistan.
Now, where would the next American disaster take place?
Abangan!