On Friday, the US military withdrew the last of its forces from Bagram Air Base, the largest US military facility in Afghanistan, and handed it over to the Afghan government. Bagram, a former Soviet airstrip, hosted US troops for almost 20 years and was a significant symbol of the US occupation of Afghanistan.
The Bagram Air Base had expanded as the US mission in Afghanistan grew. At the height of its operations in 2012, the base saw 100,000 troops pass through. The US has scrapped much of the equipment at Bagram and is handed over what’s left to Afghan forces. Now the Afghan military will use the base, but the US will still be paying for it.
After President Biden ordered to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan, many observers questioned if the US was willing to give up Bagram Air Base. While the US military leaving Bagram marks the end of an era, Washington is still looking to maintain a presence in Afghanistan, although it will look very different than before.
What US officials are calling the “formal withdrawal” from Afghanistan is expected to be completed by July 4th, well ahead of President Biden’s September 11th deadline, but at least 650 troops are expected to stay beyond September under the guise of protecting the US embassy.
The US and Turkey are also working out a deal to occupy and secure the Kabul airport, which the US sees as key to maintaining a diplomatic presence. The plan could involve more US troops staying to guard the airport. Either way, the plan will probably not be acceptable to the Taliban and only fuel more violence.
I knew when the U.S. invaded, they would be driven out. I always remember how the Afghans caught 17,000 British troops, and killed all but one of them. So he could return and tell the tale. I have spent time there and have done business with them. Theit incredible bravery and their Pastune Wala set them far apart from neighbors like pakistan and Iran who can’t really measure up in my mind to their Afghan neighbors. I am so happy to see this day and hopefully the day will come when the U.S. will be out totally.
I am left wondering why the U.S. chose to invade Afghanistan. Was it the sugar plums of petro profits dancing in the heads of big oil? Or the likely hand of our little big Welfare Queen wanting to get close & personal to Muslim nuclear bombs of Pakistan? Maybe to place one more link in the chains surrounding China & Russia? Or all of the reasons aforementioned? In any case it can be seen as just another exhibit in the crimes and blunders of trying to cow Afghanis by another failing near bankrupt empire.
1. To occupy a strategic nation in the backyard of China and Iran and on the underbelly of Russia. The plan was to destabilise China and Russia with terrorists and to invade Iran from the east as well as from Iraq in the west.
2. To secure oil and gas pipelines for UNOCAL. When the Taliban first took power, Amerikastan enthusiastically welcomed it and started negotiating pipeline rights. It was only when Mullah Omar signed a deal with BRIDAS of Argentina and not UNOCAL that the Taliban suddenly became an enemy.
3. CIA opium profits.
4. To exploit Afghan minerals.
An interesting thing happened in Modistan. Back in June Modi’s foreign minister, the grovellingly servile American servant S Jaishankar, travelled twice to Qatar in one week to negotiate with Takiban there. The Qatar government confirmed the negotiations were taking place. Modi’s lapdog mouthpiece media stated making noises about how India needed to mend relations with the Taliban and turn it against Pakistan (fat chance).
Now, since yesterday, the same Modi regime media is making a sudden concerted propaganda drive against the Taliban, as though a switch was thrown. It’s taken to calling them “terrorists”, and claiming that Taliban in the liberated areas are making men grow beards and forbidding women to go out alone, which not just the Taliban but people in those areas denied.
And the Modi regime is now suddenly and stridently denying, after two weeks of silence, that it met the Taliban at all.
There is really just one explanation: the Taliban were offered a bribe of some kind by Modi, possibly a “power sharing arrangement ” that would leave stooges like Ghani and Abdullah in office, in return for letting India ship terrorists, spies and saboteurs to Pakistan like it used to before the Taliban resurgence. And the Taliban told Modi to stick his bribe up where the sun doesn’t shine.
There were probably a lot of sorrows being drowned in cow urine in Modi’s foreign ministry the other night.
New cartoon series on Afghanistan! My site.
https://ragheadthefiendlyterrorist.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/left-on-afghanistans-plains-part-i/