NATO abruptly pulled all its staff from the Afghanistan’s government ministries on Saturday after two high-ranking U.S. military advisers were shot dead inside a highly secure command center at the interior ministry in Kabul by an Afghan police officer.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings in which a U.S. colonel and major were shot in the head. In a statement, the Taliban called the shooter “a hero mujahid Abdul Rahman.” The shooter is still at large.
There have been numerous other instances where an Afghan soldier or policeman turns his gun his American or NATO counterparts, but this time it was extraordinary because the shooter was able to get inside the fortified compound of the Interior Ministry. Distrust and insecurity among occupation forces are at an all time high.
The shooting comes amid a growing protest movement in Afghanistan over the U.S. military’s burning of Muslim holy books outside Bagram Airbase. Dozens of protesters and four NATO soldiers have been killed, and demonstrations spread into Pakistan where anti-American sentiment is extremely intense.
The Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan rests on being able to train Afghan security forces so that the nation-building project has some perceivable end in sight. This is been an utter failure for some time now, but this week’s events have made that failure much more blatant, as deep-seated distrust and resentment have manifested quite sharply.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, confirmed that U.S. aid to the rebels began before the (Soviet) invasion:
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan [in] December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention…. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would….
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap…. The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War".
He who sows the wind reaps the storms.
To this day Mr. Brzezinski is inordinately proud of his beastly deeds of plunging the USSR, Afghanistan and then the US in a quagmire of death and destruction.
Big chess game, indeed…
How much will it take before the Emperor understands? Trillions of dollars worth of advanced killing machines can destroy their homes and kill families and his dollars can always buy the corruptible, but the people will find a way to express their displeasure with enough reciprocal violence to get their point across.
OK kiddies, time to look in the mirror…How many more hints is it going to take to get the friggin' message? How many more dead high-ranking Officers in "protected" environments is it going to take before those in charge understand…THEY DON'T WANT US THERE!!!
Pack up the toys of war and bring the kids home. Regardless of how many think-tank studies indicate that there are strategic advantages to being there – they're all lying. Let those others who covet that rat-hole have it. It cannot be worth the destruction of our nation because that is where we're headed. When we spend more treasure on infrastructure in a place on the other side of the world and sit back and watch our own country crumble around us one has to wonder, who the phuk is in charge – and WHY?
Good to see how well NATO is doing in Afghanistan and how they're winning minds and hearts.
Mr. Glaser, not to be nitpicky here, but do you ever once reflect on your language? For example, do you actually believe that the Afghans are in this violent rage because some Korans were burned? Can you see how this phrasing plays completely into the Empire's "Crazy Primitive Muslim" meme? After 10 years of unmitigated violence against the Afghan people, including the seemingly endless parade of drone-deaths and outright murders of women and children, the half-hearted apologies and blatant lies about it, and this brutal and purposeless occupation along with it, that the people of Afghanistan are pretty much exploding with rage? Don't you think it might be worth considering that just a little next time you're working on your oh-so-safe MSM story phrasing?
Same with your other linked story. Who is responsible for those "deaths" to which you so abstractly refer? Seems there's people being killed but the only killers mentioned are Afghans. The poor, poor US soldiers being hurt there are just the victims there from that crazy primitive population and their backward religion, that's what comes through in your BS "neutral" journalist tone. Just think about it, okay?