Hamid Karzai has let the Pentagon’s cat out of the bag — to the displeasure of the Obama Administration. The Afghan president revealed inside information about President Obama’s war plans after all U.S. “combat troops” completely withdraw in 17 months at the end of 2014.
As was known in recent years, the Obama Administration actually plans to keep troops in Afghanistan after the “withdrawal” at least to 2024. They won’t be “combat troops,” so Obama didn’t actually mislead the American people. Instead they are to be Special Forces troops, who certainly engage in combat but are identified by a different military designation, as well as U.S. Army trainers for the Afghan military, CIA contingents, drone operators, and various other personnel.
The White House has kept other details secret, such as troop numbers and basing arrangements, until it is certain a final Strategic Partnership Declaration is worked out with the Kabul government. When that occurs, the White House expects to make the announcement itself at a time of its choosing, sculpting the information to convey the impression that another 10 years of fighting is not actually war but an act of compassion for a besieged ally who begs for help.
On May 9, however, during a speech at Kabul University, President Karzai decided to update the world on the progress he was making in his secret talks with the U.S., evidently without Washington’s knowledge.
“We are in very serious and delicate negotiations with America,” Karzai said. “America has got its demands, Afghanistan too has its own demands, and its own interests…. They want nine bases across Afghanistan. We agree to give them the bases.
“Our conditions are that the U.S. intensify efforts in the peace process [i.e., talks with the Taliban], strengthen Afghanistan’s security forces, provide concrete support to the economy — power, roads and dams — and provide assistance in governance. If these are met, we are ready to sign the security pact.”
Washington evidently was taken aback by Karzai’s unexpected public revelations that made it clear President Obama is anxious, not hesitant, to keep American troops in Afghanistan. Few analysts thought there would be as many as nine bases. Neither the White House nor State Department confirmed requesting them but both emphasized that any bases in question were not intended to be permanent, as though that’s the principal factor.
If American engagement lasts until 2024, it will mean the U.S. has been involved in Afghan wars for most of the previous 46 years. It began in 1978 when Washington (and Saudi Arabia) started to finance the right wing Islamist mujahedeen uprising against a left wing pro-Soviet government in Kabul. The left regime was finally defeated in 1992 and the Taliban emerged as the dominant force among several other fighting groups in the mid-90s.
The CIA remained active in Afghanistan and was joined by the rest of the U.S. war machine weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in Washington and New York. The objective was to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda, which also emerged from the Washington-financed wars. The U.S. swiftly took control of Kabul and al-Qaeda fled to Pakistan. Since then, the American foreign legion has been fought to a stalemate by a much smaller poorly equipped guerrilla force, which is where the situation remains today.
The U.S. has engaged in secret talks with the Taliban off and on for a couple of years. The hope is that the Taliban will agree to stop fighting and subordinate itself to the Kabul government in return for money, and a certain amount of administrative and political power within the national and certain provincial governments.
The Taliban will agree to nothing at this stage but an immediate and total withdrawal of U.S. military forces and the closure of bases. The White House evidently thinks that a combination of U.S.-trained Afghan forces plus the remaining Americans might bring their opponents to the bargaining table. The nine bases also provide the U.S. with a strong bargaining chip to relinquish at the right time.
Washington has additional reasons for remaining in Afghanistan, as we wrote in the May 31, 2011, issue of the Activist Newsletter — and little has changed:
“The U.S. has no desire to completely withdraw from its only foothold in Central Asia, militarily positioned close to what are perceived to be its two main enemies with nuclear weapons (China, Russia), and two volatile nuclear powers backed by the U.S. but not completely under its control by any means (Pakistan, India). Also, this fortuitous geography is flanking the extraordinary oil and natural gas wealth of the Caspian Basin and energy-endowed former Soviet Muslim republics such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Lastly, Iran — a possible future imperial prize — is situated directly across Afghanistan’s western border.
“The U.S. wants to keep troops nearby for any contingency. Washington’s foothold in Central Asia is a potential geopolitical treasure, particularly as Obama, like Bush before him, seeks to prevent Beijing and Moscow from extending their influence in what is actually their own back yard, not America’s.” Soon after this was written the Obama Administration revealed its “pivot” to Asia. Remaining in Central Asia is now part of what we have called America’s “ring of fire” around China, singeing North Korea as well.
Karzai occasionally makes strong public statements that criticize the U.S. They seem mainly intended to bolster his position by showing the Afghan people he is not Uncle Sam’s total puppet, but he’s to be praised for these statements.
For example, he often complains openly when the U.S. commits war crimes in his country, which have been numerous. He has demanded the U.S. discontinue night raids on homes. In late February, according to the Guardian, he ordered “U.S. Special Forces to leave one of Afghanistan’s most restive provinces, Maidan Wardak, after receiving reports from local officials claiming that the elite units had been involved in the torture and disappearance of Afghan civilians.” He recently charged that Washington was allowing the Taliban to increase its violence to make it necessary for him to approve the U.S. demand to remain until 2024.
Washington named Karzai acting president soon after the Bush Administration’s aggressive invasion 12 years ago. His job was to serve the interests of the United States while governing Afghanistan. Karzai was elected president with decisive U.S. backing two years later. The Obama Administration maneuvered to oust him in the 2009 election, charging him with gross corruption, but its candidate withdrew just before the voting. Karzai legally cannot run for another term, but intends to continue playing a powerful role if he can pull it off.
Karzai is shrewd and realizes America’s intentions are far more corrupt than his own because he only wants money, power and a somewhat better deal for Afghanistan, while the hypocritical U.S. wants everything there is to grab for its own geopolitical interests. He has long been on the CIA’s generous payroll and also distributes payoffs to various warlords, some of whom are closer to the CIA than to the government. A week before the 2001 invasion, the CIA was inside the country smuggling money to the warlords to join the impending war on the Taliban.
The White House dislikes the Afghan leader, but he’s all they have at the moment. They desperately need him now, particularly until signing a final agreement on having U.S. troops remain until 2024. President Obama well remembers his humiliation when Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rejected demands to keep troops in Iraq after the “withdrawal” date, Dec. 30, 2011.
Obama pressured Maliki for years to permit up to 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after the “combat troops” pulled out. In mid-October 2011 the Iraqi leader finally accepted 3,000 to 5,000 troops in a training-only capacity. The Iraqis then insisted that they remain largely confined to their bases, and refused Washington’s demand to grant legal immunity to the soldiers when they entered the larger society.
That was the deal-breaker. Washington routinely demands legal exemption for its foreign legions as a matter of imperial hubris, and would not compromise. The day after the deal collapsed, Obama issued a public statement intended to completely conceal his failure. “Today,” he said, “I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.”
Not as long as the poppy grows
an excerpt from:
Drugs, the U.S., and Khun Sa
Francis W. Belanger © 1989
Editions Duang Kamol
Siam Square, Bangkok, Thailand
ISBN 974-210-4808
THE ROLE OF THE CIA
THE CIA AND THE DRUG INDUSTRY
The mid-1960s marked the peak of the European heroin industry, and shortly thereafter it went into a sudden decline. In the early 1960s the Italian government launched a crackdown on the Sicilian Mafia, and in 1967 the Turkish government announced that it would begin phasing out cultivation of opium poppies on the Anatolian plateau in order to deprive Marseille’s heroin laboratories of their most important source of raw material. But, unwilling to abandon their lucrative narcotics racket the Corsican syndicates—and the American Mafia—shifted their sources of supply to Southeast Asia, where surplus opium production and systematic government corruption created an ideal climate for large scale heroin production.
And once again American foreign policy played a role in creating these favorable conditions. During the early 1950s the CIA had backed the formation of a Nationalist Chinese guerilla army in Burma, a group which still controls as much as half of the world’s opium supply, and in Laos the CIA created a M eo mercenary army whose commander manufactured heroin for sale to, among others, American GIs in South Vietnam. The State Department provided unconditional support for corrupt governments known to be engaged in the international drug traffic. In late 1969 new heroin laboratories sprang up in the tri-border and where Burma, Thailand, and Laos converge, and unprecedented quantities of heroin started flooding into the United States. Nurtured by a seemingly limitless flow of heroin, America’s total number of addicts skyrocketed.
The bloody Saigon street fighting of April-May 1955 marked the end of French colonial rule and the beginning of direct American intervention in Vietnam. When the First Indochina war came to an end, the French government had planned to withdraw its forces gradually over a two- or three-year period in order to protect its substantial political and economic interests in southern Vietnam. The armistice concluded at Geneva, Switzerland, in July 1954 called for the French Expeditionary Corps to withdraw into the southern half of Vietnam for two years, until an all-Vietnam referendum determined the nation’s political future. Convinced that Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Viet Minh were going to score an overwhelming electoral victory, the French began negotiating a diplomatic understanding with the government in Hanoi.
But America’s moralistic cold warriors were not quite so flexible. Speaking before the American Legion Convention several weeks after the signing of the Geneva Accords, New York’s influential Catholic prelate, Cardinal Spellman, warned that:
“If Geneva and what was agreed upon there means anything at all, it means … taps for the buried hopes of freedom in Southeast Asia! Taps for the newly betrayed millions of Indochinese who must now learn the awful facts of slavery from their eager Communist masters!”