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Sunday, July 04, 2021

As was in Vietnam, so it is in Afghanistan - American betrayal again

Guardian (Aus Ed):

Afghanistan: America’s ‘longest war’ ends amid accusations of betrayal

Analysis: Washington did not learn the lessons of Vietnam and more death and suffering are inevitable


An Afghan national army soldier stands guard at Bagram on the day the last of the American troops vacated the airbase.
Photograph: Mohammad Ismail/Reuters

The US war in Afghanistan was not supposed to be another Vietnam. “I don’t do quagmires,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the original US invasion in 2021, who died last week. In the end, the former US defence secretary did two quagmires, airily assuming Afghanistan was “won” in the spring of 2003 when he sent American troops to fight in Iraq.

US combat troops were in Vietnam for eight years, but they have been in Afghanistan for 20. It has been America’s longest war by far.

Joe Biden has insisted the withdrawal is not quite complete, but the remaining few hundred US troops in Afghanistan are there on guard duty. The abandonment of Bagram airbase on Friday marked the true end to the US military presence in the country.

Built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s, Bagram was the hub of US operations for two decades as well as a notorious prison camp. American aircraft will continue to fly over Afghanistan but they will be launched from “over the horizon”, from warships and bases in other countries.



Doesn't the above structure remind you of the Chinese camp in Xinjiang? The Western Press have been complicit in remaining silent about what went on inside Bragram, but the difference is that in Bagram there was proof of torture of locals by the Americans - read my
 (Sunday, May 22, 2005) The Tragedy of an Afghan Taxi Driver

As in Vietnam, the US is leaving after a peace deal with an enemy it had tried to destroy and failed. As in Vietnam, the emboldened enemy is not expected to keep the peace. Saigon held out for two years against the North Vietnamese army after the American withdrawal. Some US intelligence estimates do not even give Kabul six months.

The embassy in the Afghan capital has its own “emergency action plan” for worst-case scenarios, disclosed by Politico on Friday, which inevitably brings back memories of the humiliating scramble from the roof of the Saigon mission in April 1975. Then as now, those who worked with the Americans, such as military interpreters, have been pleading to be evacuated alongside them.

According to the United Nations, at least 50 of Afghanistan’s nearly 400 districts have fallen to the Taliban since May. With the US gone, Afghan civilians are trying to organise self-defence militias to defend their villages against the forces waiting in the countryside around them.

The military lesson of Vietnam was that the US could not conduct a counter-insurgency thousands of miles from home against an ideologically driven enemy rooted in a community that ultimately saw American troops as occupiers. It was a lesson learned – and then forgotten in the fervour that followed the 9/11 attacks.


Rumsfeld thought he could dodge Vietnam’s shadow by using small numbers of US special forces in partnership with local warlords, but that is after all how US involvement in Vietnam began in 1964, with small “A-Team” groups of advisers training regular and paramilitary groups in the south.

By the end in Afghanistan, young Americans were being deployed who were not even born when the war started, in some cases serving alongside their parents, who have served multiple tours of duty there.

Both wars worked like a mangle, pulling in more and more troops, money and equipment to justify and protect what had already been spent or lost. Once Americans and Afghans had died to drive out the Taliban, open schools to girls and bolster the army, withdrawal seemed like a betrayal.

That mindset kept the “forever war” going, but that does not mean it was not real. Those picking up guns to defend their villages and many Afghan women and civil society activists now feel betrayed by the departing Americans.

Whatever happens, more death and suffering are inevitable. Joe Biden and the US will not be able to escape some degree of responsibility, even if they are no longer there.



30 April 1975 - US military scurried away like rats abandoning a sinking ship, like a beaten dog running away with its tail between its hind legs



12 comments:

  1. The Yanks gave it a good go for 20 years, they bled and died, they are clearly unwanted, so they should leave.

    That's not betrayal.

    The history of Aghanistan, is that these people are so xenophobic against foreigners, the domestic devil is always more preferable to any foreign army.

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is plenty of evidence of CCP Kempetai actions in Xinjiang, only CCP fanboys die-die disbelieve it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Are you calling Wong Chun Wai a CCP fanboy and a liar? Show your plenty evidence! Don't prove yourself to be an empty talker!

      http://wongchunwai.com/2021/04/smear-campaign-serving/

      Delete
    2. State yr farts with proofs, photoshoped evidences excluded.

      Don't just act like a demoNcratic zombie. Anything that tied with China/CPC/Chinese would instantly induce yr involuntary diarrhea!

      Delete
    3. These are your plenty of evidence? What a joke!

      https://observers.france24.com/en/20200103-how-fake-images-uighur-persecution-are-hurting-cause

      Delete
    4. https://xinjiang.amnesty.org/

      160 pages of personal testimonies by victims of torture and various abuses by authorities in Xinjiang

      CCP Kempetai indeed.

      Wong Chun Wai, Group Managing Editor of The Star has been a profession liar and propagandist for the last 40 years.
      The Star, among many, many other lies, at one time baldly stated 1MDB was just about miatakes in business decisions, no crimes involved. Guess who was the Managing Editor ?

      If you don't realise that, you deserve to continued to be screwed by UMNO, BN and PN.

      Delete
    5. Wakakakakaka…

      https://xinjiang.amnesty.org/

      What so special about this ned sponsored outfit?

      The funniest part is have u crossfchecked all that "160 pages of personal testimonies by victims of torture and various abuses by authorities in Xinjiang"?

      Ooop… no need!

      There r gospel even when been cross-referenced there r many obvious fabrications as in names & date mismatches.

      Truly doggie at best!

      Delete
    6. Is that all you've got, the "160 pages of personal testimonies by victims of torture and various abuses by authorities in Xinjiang"?

      I don't suppose you bother to counter check and compare with other reports, not just restrict to Wong Chun Wai, but such as this :

      https://worldaffairs.blog/2020/09/20/uyghur-xinjiang-explained-in-four-minutes/

      https://worldaffairs.blog/2019/07/05/xinjiang-and-uyghurs-what-youre-not-being-told/

      Like you mentioned WCW, your uncle Sam said Iraq possessed WMD and went on to mass destruct Iraq and it's proven today your uncle Sam lied. Iraq had no WMD.

      Similarly, US also claimed Huawei had 'backdoor' security risk. Until today, it can't prove the false accusation because there is none. It turned out it was your uncle Sam who is the real crook spying immorally even on its trusted alliance counting even the German Chancellor Angela Merkel!

      Now US claimed genocide in Xinjiang, all its so called witnesses and evidences were just he said, she said and distortion of China authorities dealing with terrorist described as “Ethnic Cleansing and Cultural Genocide!” and some so called satellite images with distorted interpretations which don't prove what it alleged.

      If you don't realise that you have been had, I pity you.

      Delete
  3. Its in their interest to continue the war. If there is no war, where will the military industrial complex get it's billions from?

    ReplyDelete
  4. 5000 yo Bullyland invaded North Vietnam in 1979 and the PLA got beat by tiny Viet Nam. And why did they attack Viet Nam? Because Viet Nam dared to attack the cruel Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, which 5000 yo Bullyland sapot.

    QUOTE
    When Vietnamese military invaded Cambodia in 1978, China provided extensive political and military support for the Khmer Rouge. In 1979, the Chinese People's Liberation Army waged a brief border war against Vietnam, partly to threaten it into pulling out of Cambodia.
    UNQUOTE

    Imagine, CCP sapot Khmer Rouge, who were responsible for the slaughter of millions of civilians in the Killing Fields, like the cruel Japanese slaughter millions of Chinese in the 30s and 40s.

    But in this incompetent invasion of North Viet Nam Bullyland suffered more casualties in three weeks than the US did in 20 years in Afghanistan, which was half a world away, not next door. No shame there?

    https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/1979-china-was-crushed-war-vietnam-what-happened-next-25322

    https://thediplomat.com/2017/02/the-bitter-legacy-of-the-1979-china-vietnam-war/

    https://www.businessinsider.com/what-china-war-with-vietnam-means-for-its-next-war-2021-3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      Why all the referrals only on demoNcratic propaganda mouthpieces?

      Using yr own oft-chanted fair access of infos, where r the views from the other sides?

      Oooop… u read no other media but just regurgitated diarrhea from the fart filled well!

      Delete
  5. Why for 20 years in Afghanistan, the so powerful US cannot eliminate the Talibans?

    - They would never want to do that to leave that area a peaceful place for Russia and China. Instead the more chaotic the better, US would wish.

    What have they achieved?

    - They used the convenience of place and time there to train the Uyghurs terrorists and separatists in Afghanistan which almost succeeded in agitating and caused havoc to Xinjiang, China, which would gave them the excuse to bring demon-crazy to Xinjiang which will then be easily manipulate by them.

    ReplyDelete