Secretary of Defense James Mattis and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg both escaped unharmed today after a visit to the Afghan capital city of Kabul. The Karzai International Airport, into which they flew, was attacked.
Both the Taliban and ISIS have claimed responsibility for the incident, in which a series of rockets hit the airport after Mattis’ arrival. One civilian was reported killed and many wounded when a stray rocket hit a nearby house.
Mattis complained the attack was a “criminal act,” and “a classic example of what the Taliban is up to right now.” It’s unlikely anyone will deny firing missiles at an airport is a crime, though it appears that Mattis was the intended target.
Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish says that two of the attackers were killed after the attack, and a cache of explosives, including rocket-propelled grenades, were seized. The attackers were all holed up in a single building.
It’s still unclear whether they were Taliban or ISIS, though both groups have issued claims of responsibility. The Taliban is a more common attacking force in Afghanistan, though ISIS has been growing its strikes.
I’ll tell you what the criminal act was, pal. Pre-emptively invading a sovereign nation back in 2001.
Yes
I would say the real crime was to deliver the country into the hands of Islamists in the first place, everything that followed was inevitable. But I have a tough time accepting that the Taliban government did not earn a punitive military response – notwithstanding the fact it’s the USA’s fault they ever came to power in the first place – the occupation though, has nothing to do with that and is inedfensible.
Absolutely.
That secure after 16 years. Impressive. And why wouldn’t your enemy want to take out a high level official? We’d certainly bomb any airport of anyone we deemed as an enemy to take out a lot less. Plus their families.
Sad they were such a bad shot
Amazing mind set. A criminal act? Aren’t we at WAR with SOMONE?
Once a nation accepts the inevitability of interfering with another nation’s fate, it is the path to hell. With whatever intentions. Afghanistan should have been left alone, to their own devices and friends and allies. We armed the tribes of Afghanistan to fight “godless” Soviet Union that assisted Afghanistan at the time. In that short time, Afghanistan made a great deal of progress in education, access to jobs by women, and infrastructure development. But we were more concerned with Soviet Union and “had” to intervene. We did not intervene in Europe, and the break up of Soviet Union went smoothly. In Afghanistan, smart Trotsky minded interfering young lion Brzezinski, had different ideas. Saudi family Bin Laden was tapped for providing a pious engineer and explosives expert Osama bin Laden — and the base was established in Afghanistan, in Arabic, Al-Qaeda. Tribes, unhappy with secularization of Kabul, and greedy for money and shiny arms — happily took the cause of fighting for their version of God. And when after Soviet withdrawal Al-Qaeda did not suceed to dislodge Kabul government, a new and improved schema was cooked up — Taliban. Beats me why is Taliban still a mystery, as if some homegrown movement of tribes. There was NOTHING sbout Taliban that was homegrown. A most fiendish lab was set up in Pakistan — Frankestein made up of Saudi “schools”, or madrasas, Pakistani poor youth to be schooled in religion and weapons or the “students”, in Arabic, TALIBAN. And US provided directions for this new army of students, in coordination with Al-Qaeda. The invasion by Taliban followed, along with the arming of tribes that wanted to join. Not all tribes did. Following the withdrawal of Soviet Union — tribes wanted to go back to their lives. But Taliban intimidated many to join, oust Kabul goverment, and introduce cruelty of Wahhabism into the society. This brainwashed youth and their Pakistani leaders were an Islamic cult, no different then ISIS is today. There is just ONE difference — ISIS is a GLOBALIST VERSION OF ISLAM. It does not recognize secular state institutions or borders. Khalifst is a mediaeval concept of governance bases on the span of control, not sovereign secular institutions like parliament or president, secular courts, military. Their concept is based on a khalif, a feudal ruler and his associated tribal leaders, who provide soldiers, pay taxes, while Wahhabi clergy provides sharia courts. The source of sharia us Mecca, not any national authority. And the source of political directive in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Globalists embraced this — anti-nationalist version of Islamic world. The borderless, primitive, undeveloped, ignorant masses controlled by religious authority and their courts, and the authority of King with the power of purse to dole out mininal living assistance. But Taluban was not there yet. Taliban founded a classical state in Kabul, and with US assistance subjugated all tribes that did not sign up.
But Taliban took religious duty too far — destroyed multi billion opium industry, as well as heroin labs. As that “industry” paid for arms sales, US was displeased. Taliban showed lack of obedience, as most were Pakistanis, and wanted some degree of independence. They made a mistake of awarding a gas lipeline project to an Argentinian company, instead of Unical. 9-11 just provided pretext to dismantle the tiresome proxies, both already marginalized Al-Qaeda, and uppity Taliban.
But behold — after two weeks both Al-Qaeda an Taliban leadership were dismantled — US needed enemies to justify staying in Afghanistan forever. Thus, after sumpuous bombings if weddings and funerals, birthday party sleepivers, and workers on roads, or fareds in fields — plenty of Afghan tribes were pissed of, while other tribes preferred shiny arms and even shinier money. And the perennial conflict continues. But why call them Taliban, as those “students” were long gone? We cannot call them local resisrance, as it sounds bad. And “Taliban” provides that aura of continuity of mission. As Taliban has been gone for a while, and pretending is not working — suddenly via magic carpet flew in ISIS. Another our creation to provide excuse for fighting.
What would have happened if we saved our money and lives, and did nothing. Following the dismantling of Soviet Union — Afghanistan would have emerged as all other post-Soviet states, with no ill feelings towards us, and do business with us as all others do.
It us our Trotskiite neicon mentality that wants to hurry history, and has no patience for conseevative approach — that has landed us into endless, expensive MESSES. From Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, to Iraq, Libya and Syria.
But forb as long as our debate is limited to the tactics of militarism, we are getting nowhere. Trump pointed out the evils of empire and the politics of globalization that underpins it. But neocons march on — as if nothing happened. In Syria, our spec ops are arming ISIS and have their bases inbedded into ISIS territory. It matters luttle what Trump ordered. And we are about to commit a large mistake in Venezuela. Instead of letting majority rule for better or worse, we are supporting a tiny minority of disgruntled former overlords. Voting for Constitutional Assembly proved that beyond dispute. So, jnstead of lettin them be — we are spending money on speculative notion of regime change. But if we break it — we will own the mess, again.
Instead, we need to wait for polulation to work through their internal contradictions, and be there when and if they ask for assistance. Otherwise, another neocon addiction will hit our pockets. North Kirea is beyond simple to solve — double freeze on all nuclear armaments on the Peninsula. Solved. Supported by all — except neocon run US. But then, how will neicons keep clutches into the bidy pilitics if Japan and Korea? Havens forbid we should let them act rationally and in their self-interest. No, no — we need to sell arms, services, fund bases. We need to stuff and stuff and stuff bittomles pit of neocon pockets.
George Orwell said, “The best way to end a war is to lose it.” Think Vietnam, folks. Isn’t that what we’re headed for in Afghanistan?
That was quite a quote from George Orwell, Thomas .. “The best way to end a war is to lose it”. Vietnam, as you said, is a case in point.
However, as far as Afghanistan’s concerned, no invading forces have ever conquered it, dating all the way back to the Macedonian forces under Alexander the Great. The fierce warrior tribes who’ve inhabited the area (and still do) have had the great advantage of Afghanistan’s inhospitable terrain of high, rugged mountains and hundreds, if not thousands, of caves wherein these tribes have lived for centuries and still do today.
I don’t know what was going on in President Trump’s mind when he decided to send 3500 troops to Afghanistan, but it certainly wasn’t smart and/or reasonable in doing so. Those 3500 troops are just additional cannon fodder to be used up. The only way to really support the US military is to bring all of them back home and close every overseas base, even those in Europe. This nation’s infrastructure’s crumbling, even as I post my comment. This is what Trump should be doing .. After all, he had pledged to do this, both in his campaign and his Inaugural speech. Neglecting this crumbling infrastructure, as well as his other pledges to the people, is criminal in nature, making him almost as bad as Hillary Clinton and more similar to G. W. Bush.
Of all the Presidents after the end of WWII, John F. Kennedy was the only one who kept his pledges .. Unfortunately, he was assassinated. Congress has been corrupted for over a century, which makes matters even worse for the US. Senator John “Songbird” McCain’s the worst of the lot. During the Vietnam War, he betrayed both his fellow POW’s and the US by divulging the schedules and locations of the B-52 bombers to the North Vietnamese and also spewing their propaganda on the airwaves. The only circumstance that kept him out of Leavenworth Penitentiary was that his father was an Admiral.