“Concerns mount that US withdrawal from Afghanistan could risk progress on women’s rights,” blares a new headline from CNN.
“Concerns are mounting from bipartisan US lawmakers and Afghan women’s rights activists that the hard-won gains for women and civil society in Afghanistan could be lost if the United States makes a precipitous withdrawal from the country,” CNN tells us.
What follows is yet another concern-trolling empire blog about why US troops need to stay in Afghanistan, joining recent others geared toward the same end like this CNN report about how the US military will open itself up to “costly litigation” if it withdraws now because it signed defense industry contracts into 2023, and this one by The New York Times about a US intelligence report urgently warning that a withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to the nation being controlled by the people who live there.
Concerns mount that US withdrawal from Afghanistan could risk progress on women's rights https://t.co/UgqVYW4Hul
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 10, 2021
This latest article by CNN features an extensive series of quotes by Annie Pforzheimer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank regurgitating the tired old mantra that a withdrawal from Afghanistan needs to be “conditions-based”, to ensure that no women will be mistreated if the US ends its twenty-year military occupation of the country.
CSIS, for the record, is funded by war profiteering corporations like Northrop Grumman and Boeing, as well as fossil fuel companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco. It is also funded by plutocrats. It is also funded directly by the United States government and its allies. This article is precisely the sort of narrative management initiative that such think tanks exist for, and the fact that it’s considered normal journalistic practice to quote sources with such blatant ulterior motives as objective experts shows that western news media is propaganda.
When think tankers like Pforzheimer babble about a “conditions-based withdrawal” from Afghanistan, they are lying about what the requisite “conditions” would actually be. A complete and total withdrawal will have nothing to do with whether women are guaranteed to be treated nicely. It will have nothing to do with whether defense contractors will sue the US government or whether the Taliban will be able to retake control of the nation. A complete and total withdrawal from Afghanistan will happen when Afghanistan ceases to be a vital geostrategic point of control, which effectively means the US will maintain some sort of foothold in Afghanistan for as long as China, Russia and Iran remain sovereign nations.
A US puppet regime in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran. If that somehow happens one day, the empire will have no further use for Afghanistan. Those are the real “conditions”.
The US empire does not care about women. The US empire routinely kills women and creates lawless environments where rape and sexual slavery are commonplace with its military interventionism. What this hand-wringing about women’s rights in Afghanistan has actually accomplished is a convenient justification for further military occupation, a destructive industry of shady NGOs, and functionally not much else.
But this argument wouldn’t even make sense if it was sincere. The only way to argue with logical coherence that the US should militarily occupy a nation to uphold liberal values is to also argue that the US should invade and occupy all other nations in the world with illiberal cultural values and force them all to change at gunpoint. Unless you uphold this argument with logical consistency in this way (and almost nobody does this because that would be insane), it looks like you’re simply making up arguments to justify invading and occupying geostrategically crucial regions with great military and resource value. And, of course, this is exactly what you are doing.
So much empire propaganda is just concern trolling at mass scale. Oh my it sure is concerning how they’re abusing that poor oppressed population in that nation whose government we just so happen to want to topple. Sure we’d have to butcher mountains of human beings and destabilize entire vast regions in order to rescue them, but that’s a sacrifice we’d be willing to make. We are humanitarians, after all.
Breaking News: A U.S. troop withdrawal would put Afghanistan at risk of being overrun and taken over by the people who live there. https://t.co/ELBUhijEEm
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 26, 2021
“Concern” is the propaganda carrier for the most violent of interventions. If imperialism was a virus, “concern” would be the benign-looking shape it took so the body didn’t set off an immune response. “Concern” is the most Karen of manipulations.
Still it says a lot that they need to tug at our humanitarian heart strings like that in order to advance their empire-building agendas these days. It used to be stuff like “They’re savages and they need to learn about Jesus,” or even just “Your King has decreed that those people shouldn’t get to control the land they live on anymore.”
We’ve evolved as a society to the point where at least now they need to appeal to our better demons. Where they need to hide their disgusting agendas behind noble-looking ones.
Let’s keep evolving, please. Maybe our collective consciousness can expand so far that they won’t be able to get away with any of their psychopathic murderousness at all.
_____________________
New book: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix.
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
57 responses to “Media Concern Trolling About Afghanistan Withdrawal Again”
And then there’s the huge concern for land rights for gay and trans whales.
The real concern in A L L Mellican (oligarchs’) domestic and foreign policy: “… US intelligence report urgently warning that a withdrawal from Afghanistan could lead to the nation being controlled by the people who live there …”
(and mustn’t forget the CIA would have to hold bake sales for its off-the-books operations, and the banksters would starve w/o income from their laundries.)
“(and mustn’t forget the CIA would have to hold bake sales for its off-the-books operations, and the banksters would starve w/o income from their laundries.)”
Yes, we must never forget the CIA “bake sales” that included selling weapons of war to supposed enemies (arms to Iran for hostages to fund the Contra terrorists and cocaine shipments through Panama to guarantee the supply to celebrities, Wall Street party boys and other various white folks – until Bush I and Noriega got crosswise to the point that the propaganda machine went all in on “Noriega=bad”).
I’m sure there are many more I have forgotten.
‘Let’s keep evolving please’
Physical evolution is unstoppable.
Spiritual evolution, on the other hand, requires self realisation which can only happen under two circumstances.
Compulsive curiosity, or a massive shock to the mind, like a brush with death or a global catastrophe.
The latter seems more imminent.
Another example of psychopathic bullying by the US on an ally.
https://m.timesofindia.com/world/us/us-asserts-right-of-navigation-in-india-waters-accusing-new-delhi-of-excessive-maritime-claims/articleshow/82008079.cms#_ga=2.84423833.1670332792.1618189148-398522136.1618189148
How many billions have the US pumped into waring in the Middle East? I’m no geostrategist but I would think if you wanted to improve the lives of women and indeed all people’s of that region the best thing to do would have been to take all that money and spend it on infrastructure for the people: schools, hospitals, utilities, housing etc. and programs to educate and transform daily life. This would have a doubtless positive effect on the quality of life for those people. But somehow they think bombing and shooting them is a better way to improve their lives? I guess I’m just not smart enough to understand how that works.
The infrastructure for the people: schools, hospitals, utilities, housing etc. and programs to educate and transform daily life industry lobby is not as strong or well embedded in the U.S. government as the bombing and shooting them industry lobby.
Were it so that government funds were as easily available for American contractors to build and supply the infrastructure, with attendant no-bid contracts and guaranteed profits, perhaps that approach would be picked up by the think tanks and the empire would have a different face.
Yes that would be a good thing to do but who is going to protect it after you leave? Military force not needed?
Perhaps just as a by product of US in Afghanistan is protecting the rights of women there but does that mean the US must logically protect everyone in oppressive countries? Not possible – Caitlin says if you can’t protect all don’t protect even one that you can.
Reply to; feedback@sciencenews.org
Muon magnetism could hint at a breakdown of physics’ standard model
Unfortunately, the accelerator’s geographical location being as it is in
Mafia country; anything coming out of Fermi Lab is suspect, just as is
anything coming out of Harvard and Oxford.
Maybe after the results have been verified by a dozen other labs that
aren’t under criminal control, that I’d take the ‘news’, anymore seriously
than a bubble in the sea. Just as the Pope and many others are subject to
the whims of the criminal class, I understand that your mag is subject to
the same forces, so however it plays out in the end, I understand.
The last time we had, ‘new physics’, it came with a century of wars,
genocides galore, massive lost of freedoms, etcetera.
But I understand, as the motto of Mad Magazine said best, “What Me Worry?”
If the US is so concerned about women’s rights in Afghanistan, then why did it support the Mujahedeen, and Osama Bin Laden, against the Soviets, who were there to protect the secular government which allowed women to work, go to school and walk around with their hair and faces uncovered…? That is why women in the 70’s walked around Kabul wearing miniskirts. The Mujahedeen, with the help of the US, ended that freedom.
So it’s pretty obvious that the US doesn’t care about women’s rights.
You know – it makes so much sense what you say Deborah Armstrong. It makes so much sense it makes one wonder who the “US” really is. It ain’t me. I don’t consider myself part of it anymore. I split away about, I don’t know, 16 years ago or thereabouts – after the false war that resulted in the death of a million innocents (probably more) and still counting if that is what you do. One of many.
~
Still, it is the country whose borders I reside in, but history tells us. It tells US. All things change over time – especially for those countries who get a bit too full of IT. Empire today – dustbin of history tomorrow. The beauty of it nowadays is that things change quick. That is what I mean when I refer to a thing called “exponential flux”. Leads to a reckoning, and baby Jesus, the reckoning is upon us. Do you feel it? I do.
~
River rocks for sale. A penny a piece for the little ones.
~
Now, it is time for me to go away for awhile and focus on some other stories of interest. The story of Sally will be at the website linked to my name on this post cause it (the site) got renewed for another year even though that wasn’t my plan. Sometimes things don’t go as planned, but the key is to roll with it however it goes and then apply your principles to the situation at hand. So, the story of Sally will be there and it will be there soon, but my posting here is coming to an end. I feel that in my bones and I wish well to all who make the effort to read here and especially those with the courage to post.
~
The reckoning has arrived and things are fixing to get better for most of us. I told my wife today, Mr. Bezos needs to find Jesus and give up pretty much every penny he has for the sake of commonweal. Imagine what could be accomplished if it was done wisely.
~
Ha, ha. Do think that will happen? I hope so, but best to have contingencies.
~
Get a hold of me if you play bridge and are interested in a fair and honest game. Bluffs and such are part of the game and my partner will have to understand that aspect, or she will never be my partner.
~
Peace and Goodwill.
Signing off for now.
Buffalo_Ken
I guess that the US concern over communism is greater than that over miniskirts. Can you conceive Congress saying ‘no, don’t kick out the communists, save the wearing of miniskirts, and other personal freedoms.
Fighting communism is the most important thing for the US, look how much they have spent on it, screw everything else.
With respect, I disagree. Everyone knows communism doesn’t work, including the Chinese. The. Fight against communism is a front for more wars, more arms sales, more invasions, and more of what America is known for. Lying, cheating, stealing and sliming.
They spent trillions of dollars to be there. Money the USA never had but the creditors. The president doesn’t have power enough to do anything without the approval of those who sponsor everything. 9/11, war on terror, crypto currency, lockdown-masks new normal are all for the “greater good”. We are contemplating the last decade of the USA as people have known in the last 100 years. To have one government to rule one world they need to have control overall the money in the world. Russia and China banks-sponsors don’t want to be governed by the holders on the Federal Reserve. To take the power of a country you need to take their ability to self-sustain and to not obey the financial hardcore. Nazism and communism fought against each other for control but all of them: capitalism, communism, socialism come from the same idea of collectivism created a 150 years ago. You don’t know what’s really going on if you don’t know how everything works. So far this blog is just looking to the small picture but it’s very helpful in one front against the massive propaganda.
Won’t take emojis. But thumbs up.
Capitalism comes from collectivism?
I’m not John Knox, but I clearly recall Obama campaigning on a promise to remove all troops from Afghanistan, in an orderly withdrawal planned to be completed by 2014, with the only American personnel remaining (temporarily) in that country solely in an advisory capacity.
Obama made a lot of campaign promises that he later either ignored or acted in the opposite direction of that promised.
It seems to me that Knox was not saying that Obama wanted to end the wars, but that, in order to get elected he had to appear to want an end to the wars.
If I had $1 for every campaign promise ever, that was a lie, for the express intent of getting elected, I’d be wealthy enough to be one of those profiting from those endless wars.
John Knox said he was “convinced that he [Obama] wanted to end the wars and bring the troops home.”
It’s the ‘convinced’ bit that I don’t understand, but want to.
Eventually, women in England and the U.S. secured the right to vote. Women, as a gender and a force to be reckoned with, may take their time about it, but they always, eventually, prove successful.We may get upset over how long it may take, in certain countries but, in the end, it will happen when self-determination kicks in, both in a country and in segments of that country.
Propaganda has become so common (and often so obvious) that my typical research starts with the company (or other entity) speaking, then to the individuals, followed by their records, what other organizations they have belonged to and many other topics. There’s little that gets by me, because I am skeptical of the obvious, the too-good-to-be-true (which usually is) and anything that flows against either common sense or what is functional in today’s world. Those responsible for the propaganda couldn’t give a rat’s ass about people here at home, let along what happens to those on the other side of the globe.
We’re involved in one more phony cold war, but it hasn’t reached that temperature yet. Right now, it is room temperature (on its surface) and guaranteed to get colder. Whether humanity will survive, in the end, is anyone’s guess.
If society completely broke down, women would immediately become subject to the whims of men. Society and the moral values instilled into the west byvthe church drove womens rights. However, remove them and look how the taliban treat their women for an example of what could happen within a generation.
Oops. . .. How did they let this slip by?
`
Here’s 2018, deep state Reuters article rating Afghanistan the second most dangerous place in the world to live.
`
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-women-dangerous-poll-factbox/factbox-which-are-the-worlds-10-most-dangerous-countries-for-women-idUSKBN1JM01Z
`
“2. AFGHANISTAN – Second in the list, with experts saying women face dire problems nearly 17 years after the overthrow of the Taliban.”
`
“Ranked as the most dangerous country for women in three areas – non-sexual violence, access to healthcare, and access to economic resources.
Here’s a 2018, deep state Time magazine article saying Afghanistan is no safer for women since the genicidal war and illegal occupation. They even rank the wonderful U.S. as the tenth worst place for women.”
`
`
Here’s a 2018, deep state Time magazine article saying Afghanistan is still ranked the worst place in the world for women:
`
https://time.com/5472411/afghanistan-women-justice-war/
`
“As in all war-torn societies, women suffer disproportionately. Afghanistan is still ranked the worst place in the world to be a woman. Despite Afghan government and international donor efforts since 2001 to educate girls, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school. Eighty-seven percent of Afghan women are illiterate, while 70-80 percent face forced marriage, many before the age of 16. A September watchdog report called the USAID’s $280 million Promote program – billed the largest single investment that the U.S. government has ever made to advance women’s rights globally – a flop and a waste of taxpayer’s money.”
`
Caitlin said:
`
“This article is precisely the sort of narrative management initiative that such think tanks exist for, and the fact that it’s considered normal journalistic practice to quote sources with such blatant ulterior motives as objective experts shows that western news media is propaganda.”
`
Keep hammering away at this, Caitlin. People need to know where the propaganda is coming from. These, robber baron controlled think tanks dictate most of the horse dung being forced on us.
Didn’t mean to make that whole thing look like a quote from Reuters.
`
Should have said:
`
“Ranked as the most dangerous country for women in three areas – non-sexual violence, access to healthcare, and access to economic resources.”
`
Here’s a 2018, deep state Time magazine article saying Afghanistan is no safer for women since the genicidal war and illegal occupation. They even rank the wonderful U.S. as the tenth worst place for women.
From deep state PBS:
“In 1964 women helped to draft Afghanistan’s third constitution, which gave women the right to vote and opened the doors of elected office to women. Throughout most of the 1960s and 1970s, women saw increased participation in politics. Ruqiyyah Habib Abu Bakr, Masumah Ismati Wardak and Dr. Anahita Ratibzad were elected as members of parliament subsequent to adoption of the third constitution, while Humaira Malikyar Saljuqi and Azizah Gardizi were appointed as senators. In addition, in the formation of the 1965 cabinet of ministers women were included at top levels in the government. Kubra Nurzai became Minister of Public Health and was re-appointed to the same post in 1967. In 1969 Shafiqah Ziyai was appointed minister without portfolio; she was re-appointed in 1971.
In 1965 the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, a Soviet-backed socialist organization was formed. Different factions of this party called for the gradual and sometimes rapid improvement of women’s rights. The same year also saw the formation of the first women’s political group, the Democratic Organization of Afghan Women. The main objectives of this organization were to eliminate illiteracy among women, ban forced marriages, and do away with the bride price (monies paid to the family of the wife upon marriage). Women continued to participate in Afghan politics from the 1970s through the early 1990s; however, this participation was largely restricted to urban areas.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/women-in-afghanistan-politics/2201/
“Nevertheless, over the course of the twentieth century, and in particular during King Mohammed Zahir’s long reign between 1933 and 1973, Afghanistan’s education system steadily expanded even as it continued to be influenced by demands from the country’s conservative cultural and religious authorities. By the 1970s, women made up over 60 percent of the 10,000 students who studied at Kabul University.
The rise of the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan in 1978 brought large-scale literacy programs for men and women, again alongside the abolition of bride price and other reforms beneficial to women. During this period leading up the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, reforms in areas such as education stirred resentment among religious and tribal leaders in the rural areas. Although full implementation of these reforms were limited by political exigencies, women were able to experience expanded access to education and also the opportunity to actively participate as university faculty staff.”
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/uncategorized/women-in-afghanistan-education/2200/
When I voted for Obama, I was convinced that he wanted to end the wars and bring the troops home. I’m pretty sure a lot of us felt the same way. He just lied to get our votes. They say we’re in Afghanistan for democracy, but there is no way we could vote that would result in us leaving.
Can I ask what convinced you Obama wanted to end the wars? I can understand people thinking he might be more likely to than Bush, McCain or Romney, but I really don’t get why anyone would be convinced of it.
I really hope you reply!
There was a lot of resentment towards the Republicans because of the Iraq war (body bags and all that) and Obama wasn’t well known for anything other than having said we were rushing into it without having enough of a political debate. There were many protests against the war and the idea that we could vote to bring the troops home was so appealing that we actually believed it for a little while, and Obama was happy to let us keep thinking that way until after the election. He even got a Nobel peace prize for something he was only pretending to want!
Thank you.
I can understand why you hoped he wanted to end the wars and bring the troops home, like he said, but I’m still puzzled about what convinced you he did.
And I hope you can elaborate and explain some more, if not today, then some other time!
That’s how political speech works, it sounds like they’re telling you what you want to hear, but they can say they meant something different later if they have to. And I really wanted a way to end the wars.
I still don’t get it.
Of course politicians tell you what you want to hear, then forget it once elected; I get that bit.
But why does (did) really wanting something they’re promising convince you they’re going to deliver it?
Salesmanship, it sounded desireable and easy to do.
I got fooled in 2008 too. We were all so horrified by what Bush did, we forgot about the realities of politics. It was wishful thinking.
My thanks to you, and JOHN KNOX, for explaining – or trying to! I’d sort of assumed that nobody actually believes politicians, but just weighs up the likelihoods of them doing what they promise to, or the complete opposite.
I’d still like to hear more from you both about this business of forgetting the realities of politics. Neither of you sound like naive starry-eyed innocents who automatically believe what politicians say, yet you both seem to be saying you believed Obama, for reasons I still don’t really get. What was it about what he said, or how he said it, that led you to think he’d be an exception? Perhaps another day when you’ve had time to reflect on it!
I am definitely not a starry-eyed innocent! I had been voting third party since 1976! I am embarrassed to admit that I was also fooled by Billy Clinton in 1992. Not that I really believed the lies he and Obama spewed, but the Bush crime family was so abhorrent I was willing to suspend reality to get rid of them even though I knew better. I also thought there was a slim possibility, based on lies of course, that the U.S. might join the rest of the world and institute some form of universal healthcare. My bad!
I actually have little to no faith in the electoral system. I continue to vote out of habit, but I have no illusions anymore.
I’m not John Knox, but I clearly recall Obama campaigning on a promise to remove all troops from Afghanistan, in an orderly withdrawal planned to be completed by 2014, with the only American personnel remaining (temporarily) in that country solely in an advisory capacity.
Obama made a lot of campaign promises that he later either ignored or acted in the opposite direction of that promised.
It seems to me that Knox was not saying that Obama wanted to end the wars, but that, in order to get elected he had to appear to want an end to the wars.
If I had $1 for every campaign promise ever, that was a lie, for the express intent of getting elected, I’d be wealthy enough to be one of those profiting from those endless wars.
I’ve replied to your duplicate comment above! Hadn’t noticed this one.
laissez faire economics comes to die in Kabul.
corpo state theory for US consumption –foto above article example #1–shows ron paul institute podium: so free market principles are using a different theory on Afghani turf. Here the free market come to die. we do not want any competition or free entry or lack of regulations in Asia. here we want to rule with regulations.
we want to destroy their Asian attempt at selfishness so that our selfishness ala Ayn Rand Rand Paul and the Rand Institute can rule the world’s largest populations and greatest land mass.
taking over Asia for Wall St would be the cat’s ass for these mega monsters & egocentrics who currently rule america and its docile service states. part of the reason is, in the rest of the planet that we own, exists in smaller chunks impotent both by size and progress: Africa and latin america are souped up versions of
themselves who have also fought against each other for tribal and for dictatorial strongman rationals to command local military power..
each sovereign” state is like one of our states in size and self-sufficiency. South America Spanish-speaking should be one nation. Brazil is already big enough to play with the big boyz. 212 million makes them about 2/3 of US, and they joined the BRIIC.
In africa south africa, nigeria, and egypt, might go it alone but the center and the west coast is a hodgepodge of tribal animosity and korruption that might be remedied someday by statehood in a stronger federation. Taking religion into consideration leaves Islam to decide for itself–amidst follies we consider pointless. In fact we never thought about the fact that Iraq is 80-90% Shia same as Iran and so how could they ever fight each other. we have made certain they shall cling together sooner rather than later.
how can the US manipulate China, Russia, and India, no to mention Islam if that huge cluster could get some sense of unity into being? there no chance for any US dollar hegemony without war.
we are not able to command their already command economies because they have grown up knowing that they must fight an economic war against us…just to get to where they also have a right to be.
to gain self-respect and true sovereignty.
the CIA, et al, know all this…and so why not share the world-wide growth and Up-Lift everyone?
because our military industrial complex DON’T LIKE IT.
Blockbuster: NEO – The Brutal Truth about the New World Order in the Middle East
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor -April 10, 202164613
What do you think this is?
…by Gordon Duff and New Eastern Outlook, of the Russian Academy of Science (Est. 1816)
One thing is obvious as we enter the spring (northern hemisphere) of 2021. Israel with the help of Saudi Arabia and aided by a United States deemed too politically crippled to formulate a balanced foreign policy, plan to destroy Lebanon and Jordan, turning them into bases of power to stand against what they see as rising Iranian influence.
The Biden administration did not choose this policy, but they will not be able to prevent it and every moment the US waits until finally dropping sanctions against Iran will bury the US even deeper.
Missile revealed though color/contrast enhancement (Corel)
Both Syria and Iraq are already crippled by an Israeli run Kurdish nation that has seized huge swaths of Arab territory. Aided by the US, Israel’s Kurdish allies control Syria’s water supply, their wheat crops and their oil.
Different angle
It does not take a genius to turn the clock back to the heyday of ISIS. Had the ISIS caliphate succeeded in taking over both Syria and Iraq, and that nearly happened, would Israel have been more or less secure?
The fireball
Did any action of Israel during this period demonstrate that Tel Aviv saw ISIS and al Qaeda as a potential threat of any kind? In January 2014, I presented an analysis of ISIS and al Qaeda to the Iraqi government in Bagdad warning them of what key experts saw as inexorable. Our Sunni Iraqi hosts, including a number of state governors and key officials of the Bagdad regime, believed that ISIS could easily be controlled as its cadres were exclusively, at that time, from key Iraqi families, all Sunni, who had supported Saddam Hussein.
another source, same missile
ISIS was going to guarantee a Sunni only government in Bagdad and then, on command, bend to the will of their “betters.” This was the thinking Saudi Arabia was fomenting among its good friends in both Iraq and Syria.
ISIS was going to be a magic bullet to end Iranian influence in Iraq. What they did not know is that it was part of a long-planned destabilization that was engineered to end all Islamic power bases in the region, not just Iraq but even Pakistan as well, a story we will get to at another time.
Behind this, there were secret protocols and assurances from Washington and Tel Aviv, that assured key allies within the region that ISIS would never be a real threat as it and al Qaeda would be beholding to Western powers for arms and to Saudi Arabia needed cash.
What should have been obvious to even a blind man is that any and every action the West formulates in the Middle East is commercial in nature, war for profit, war for resources and war as a way of life.
Then there is the refugee issue, carefully orchestrated to bring about a political surge to the right across Europe.
Scope and Nature
The most recent decade of “regime change” wars have left one glaring survivor, Syria and has made something else clear, that Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have acted in concert for many years, perhaps decades.
The Trump presidency made one thing clear as well, for those who are willing to broaden their horizons. The actions of the United States have brought nothing to the United States but bankruptcy and pain and that the government of that greatest of all nations, as they oft refer to themselves as, is one of the most corrupt regimes on earth.
Does a concert of special interests, financial gangsters, Arab princes and Israeli Likudists, operating through a bevy of treasonous political groups, think tanks and deeply controlled media, social and otherwise, organizations, control the United States?
If we are to assume “yes,” then one would see real moves to return to the JCPOA agreement with Iran and statements from Biden’s Secretary of State Blinken about curtailing Israeli expansionism and the continued persecution of the Palestinian people.
The last ten days has provided such evidence.
Yet, US activities in Syria continue, perhaps as a bargaining chip with Iran or as a “last ditch” foothold in a Middle East that has learned to get along without the United States.
No Longer “United”
However, as we assert here, the diminished role of the United States may well be a natural progression for the self-destructive polices the US engaged upon in the wake of 9/11, some two decades ago. America was attacked and, in response, warred on everyone but those responsible, beginning two decades of wars that did nothing but serve Israeli expansionism and the security interests of the Saudi state.
Did four years of Trump family corruption, leave America powerless? Were four years spent gutting America’s political and social infrastructure leaving the world’s only superpower prostrate at the feet of world criminal elites operating though nation state platforms?
This is exactly where the evidence is taking us.
Why Lebanon and Jordan
The answers are simple, because we can, because it serves internal Israeli politics and because it engages both Saudi Arabia and the UAE in a criminal partnership with Israel that must be continually tested and reinforced, particularly in light of the failed joint effort against Yemen.
Two nations in the Middle East are being targeted for destruction, Lebanon and Jordan. Both represent threats to Israel, and both are vulnerable because of a total control “the narrative.” To understand to what degree reality can be distorted and insane falsehoods allowed to enter the historical record, one needs only to examine the events that led to the destruction of Beirut.
On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion destroyed the Port of Beirut. We were told it was fertilizer, set off by fireworks. The crater, largely underwater, penetrated 50 feet of solid rock and is over 500 feet across.
When video of an Israeli attack, one announced only days earlier, showed missiles coming in and reports and video of Israeli F-16s, their platform for delivering nuclear weapons, surfaced, a secondary attack, one on reality itself, moved into high gear.
Key Lebanese defense officials reported, though Damascus, that Israel had just hit Beirut with a nuclear weapon. Within two hours, a dozen videos had been sent via email and secure platforms, to Veterans Today along with eyewitness reports. At the request of Iranian filmmaker and TV host, Nader Talebzadeh, a video report was made immediately, translated into Arabic and Farsi, and broadcast along with live coverage. That video (original English only version) was seen tens of millions of times.
Secondarily, US President Donald Trump announced that Beirut had been hit with “a bomb.” When asked to walk back his statement, President Trump further stated this assertion, from the Times of Israel:
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that US generals had told him that the powerful explosions that rocked Beirut appeared to have been caused by a “bomb of some kind.”
“It looks like a terrible attack,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“It would seem like it, based on the explosion. I met with some of our great generals and they just seemed to feel that it was,” he said.
“This was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event. It seems to be, according to them — they would know better than I would — but they seem to think it was an attack.
“It was a bomb of some kind, yes.”
When the initial cover story of fertilizer and fireworks quickly fell apart due to simple science, fertilizer does not burn, another story, one of a nearby fuel oil storage area, filled in this one missing detail.
You see, to explode ammonium nitrate lawn fertilizer, one must mix a slurry with a hydrocarbon fuel like fuel oil and, of course, set it off with blocks of TNT. ANFO, as it is called, is a compound, like the batter from a cake mix.
Try leaving the milk and eggs in the refrigerator, the cake mix in the box, then turn on the oven and see if you get a cake. This is the logic the public is being told to accept, logic that defies science, defies common sense and defies simple engineering. Blowing a massive crater in sold rock requires one of two things, high explosives in huge quantities drilled into holes many meters deep or a surface blast from a nuclear weapon.
The original “bunker buster” bombs, which are now nuclear, are built inside the barrel of a heavy cannon, and designed to be dropped from high altitude and very high speed, in order to penetrate deep into rock. Otherwise, any surface explosion would be just that, it would explode upward only. This is what explosives do.
By the next day, Saudi Arabia and Israel, working in concert with Jared Cohen of Google’s Jigsaw and Idea Groups regime change platform, began cleansing the Internet, releasing faked videos and attacking anyone who accurately reported what happened.
Worse still, so much worse, when Lebanese citizens who knew very well they had been attacked began street protests, they were not only violently suppressed but their protests were purposely misreported as “food riots.”
The predictions made in that initial video, that Lebanon was targeted and that the attack was carefully planned to destabilize the nation, destroy its food supplies and crash its currency, have all come to pass.
Then there is the cue bono thing, who benefits?
This SouthFront report from July 2019 is the last remaining vestige of the real situation, Israel’s assertion Hezbollah was using the Port of Beirut for missile shipments and storage and Israel’s plans to hit the port with a WMD.
The Israeli military has accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons and missile manufacturing materials through Beirut Port.
Lieutenant Colonel Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, accused Hezbollah of threatening Lebanon’s security by smuggling such dangerous materials into the country in cooperation with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
“Unfortunately, the border crossings with Syria, Beirut International Airport and the port of Beirut are used to transfer materials from the Iranian Quds Force [an IRGC unit] to Hezbollah,” Adraee wrote on Twitter on July 24.
The spokesman also shared an infographic showing three routes, which Hezbollah is allegedly using to smuggle weapons and missile manufacturing materials from Iran to Lebanon.
These new accusations went in the framework of Israel’s policy towards Lebanon. Earlier this year, Paris allegedly warned Beirut that the Israeli military could strike Hezbollah missile sites. The warning was met with a strict response from the Lebanese party, that vowed to react to any attack.
In a flurry of press releases a month after the Beirut explosion, Israel removed all mention of targeting the Port of Beirut at all, having their media assets cleanse all reference to their threats to destroy the port, threats that became a reality on August 4, 2020.
Now former US President Donald Trump has been silent on his assertions that the port was attacked with a “bomb” that could only have been nuclear. No one has asked him; he has volunteered nothing and the general he referenced as his source is silent as well.
The general lack of curiosity reads as volumes, as it always does.
Conclusion
President Biden should, eventually, be able to push the US, perhaps reluctantly, back into line with its treaty obligations with Iran. That said, Biden is then faced with a military presence in Iraq that will not end as long as the US is backing a Kurdish nation state, something that can only be done from Iraq.
Similarly, the US is trapped by its own stupidity in Afghanistan as well, unable to walk away from the “Dancing Boy” regime in Kabul.
If the US withdraws, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, it leaves itself vulnerable to both Russia and China, assuming that the region is certain to fall to globalist interests. This is always the assertion, “if we don’t take it, someone else will
Where does “Missile revealed though color/contrast enhancement (Corel)” come from? It’s not in the article at https://journal-neo.org/2021/04/09/the-brutal-truth-about-the-new-world-order-in-the-middle-east/, which seems to be where the rest of your comment is from.
And even if the explosion was caused by a missile, there’s no way it was a nuclear missile. You just can’t hide nuclear explosions. They cause radioactive fallout that would have been detected far and wide by now, not to mention radiation poisoning.
“The dose rate reading in Beirut’s seaport (ground zero) varied between 58 and 100 nSv/h. The detected levels were within the average worldwide annual gamma dose rate of 50 to 53 nSv/h set by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. The recorded values were not significantly different from those measured by the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission (LAEC) at the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS-L) in 2009 and 2010 at three locations in Beirut’s seaport (minimum value 50 nSv/h and maximum value 140 nSv/h). Besides, in the surveyed area, radiological scans were conducted on 360 injured patients reported to the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), showing no signs of radiation exposure due to the explosion.”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00411-021-00901-1
Of course, they could be lying, but is there any evidence of that?
“We are humanitarians, after all.” Summary:
“We came. We saw. He died” Cackle, cackle, cackle. Ha, ha, ha.
The US Empire may not care about women, but that woman sure cares about the US Empire.
We need a mass conjuring that the entire political/ media/ military complex has a moment like this:
https://youtu.be/9XHqg7mTizE
Popular leftist ideology gives them just another catalog of tools to “convince” us that the US Is a “caring” nation that embraces such, as long as there is profit to be made. All the rightest mantras are worn out. A prime example is that Chinese Muslims are SOOOOO much more valuable than Middle Eastern Muslims. Any Chinese aggression against a few thousands of their own Muslims is orders of magnitude worse than the US killing perhaps millions of Middle Eastern Muslims. All government depends on the threat of death to retain their power. The US government extends that threat world wide, up to and including the extinction of the species.
We can govern ourselves or be governed by monsters. If there is an alternative, I’d like to examine it.
My guess would be that these raptors have an unvocalized desire to be spanked. It’s so childish we should recognize it for what is; inappropriate acting out in a desperate attempt to gain the love that their mothers never gave them from total strangers. Why aren’t there any child psychologists at the Capital to diagnosis these immature babies?
I want to draw your attention to an excellent FAIR post on the same subject, except more than Afghanistan. FAIR is Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. You should hold up this piece, which does an excellent job of reinforcing these points https://fair.org/home/support-the-tropes . It mentions other countries whose regime change operations needed some buy-in from the left, which they got with “humanitarian” or “protect women’s rights” horseshit. Sadly effecti ve.
“some buy-in from the left”
It’s hardly the left as I understand the term; it’s the US Democratic Party and their hangers-on. And it’s hardly ‘some buy-in’; it’s active promotion of this garbage by the likes of the New York Times, The Economist, the Guardian, the Washington Post, New Statesman, Vox, Time, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, etc etc. They’re peddling this horseshit because they support US imperialism. Even if they have been fooled by the stuff about feminist humanitarian motives, it’s because they’re happier to have an excuse for imperialism, but you can bet they’d still go along with the empire if the excuse was simply power and domination.
When the Russians were booted out of Afghanistan the Taliban took over the country. One of the first things that they did was to stop the growing of ” poppies ” as a cash crop. The worlds drug lords went crazy ( especially the CIA ) so to keep the supply of heroin flowing our government invaded the country.. 9-11-01 and Osama bin Laden were just the pretenses used to convince the United States public that war was necessary. Our drug dealing government will stay there ” forever ” to keep the drug money flowing!
Unrivalled BS. IRAQ for the Kurds. Afghanistan for the women. Revolting phonies.
This is so ludicrous I can’t believe they’re still putting it out there. Our humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan for the last 20 years have made life miserable for the majority there, men and women alike.
If the U.S. government gave a shit about women, they wouldn’t allow the rape and abuse that runs rampant in the armed forces, instead of encouraging it.
Of course they don’t. See the stats on sexual abuse in the US military.
World-beating.
20 years? Operation cyclone began over 40 years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/18/world/arming-afghan-guerrillas-a-huge-effort-led-by-us.html
True. It’s been going on for many decades.
How could the USA possibly have guessed the jihadis they backed would reverse gains for women in Afghanistan?
Here’s a one minute video of Brzezinski giving them a pep talk in 1979. Not much mention of the need to preserve, let alone extend, women’s rights.
https://youtu.be/A9RCFZnWGE0
And these memoranda from Brzezinski to Carter regarding Afghanistan make no mention of women at all. (They do say, “we should not be too sanguine about Afghanistan becoming a Soviet Vietnam” – in other words, another Vietnam was desired if not guaranteed, and “It is essential that Afghanistani resistance continues. This means more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels.” That’s what the thugs who run the USA learned from the wars on Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam – get someone else to do the fighting; USians don’t like dying for their empire.)
https://sites.temple.edu/immerman/brezenski-memoranda-to-carter-on-soviet-intervention-in-afghanistan/
There is no country as violent and destructive as the US. The only time the US ever talks about human rights is when they have a war to wage.
Not sure about Afghanistan but Iraq and Iran in the 60s had women wearing colorful bell bottom pants and going to university. They had a modern progressive society way back then until the CIA installed the religious fundamental leaders that would play ball with the US oil interests. Do Google image search for Iran 60s: https://www.google.com/search?q=iran+60s&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9ztDwmPbvAhXMGs0KHexjBMsQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1100&bih=959&dpr=1.09
Not sure about bell bottoms, but some Afghan women wore miniskirts in the 70s. McMaster showed trump a photo, perhaps this one, in an attempt to convince him to keep US troops in Afghanistan, claiming it proved Western norms had existed there before and could return – when in fact it was during the communist period.
https://images.hindustantimes.com/rf/image_size_640x362/HT/p2/2017/08/23/Pictures/_28cb7990-87be-11e7-b7bc-fa1568cb40f1.PNG