Your source for foreign policy news.
|
| |
|---|
|
In the wake of a remarkably successful Taliban offensive capped by the takeover of Kabul, the responses of corporate media provided what may have been the most dramatic demonstration ever of its fealty to the Pentagon and military leadership. The media did so by mounting a full-throated political attack on President Joe Biden's final withdrawal from Afghanistan and a defense of the military's desire for an indefinite presence in the country.
Biden's failure to establish a plan for evacuating tens of thousands of Afghans seeking to the flee the new Taliban regime made him a soft target for the Beltway media's furious assault. However, it was Biden's refusal last Spring to keep 4,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan on an indefinite basis - flouting an aggressive Pentagon lobbying campaign - that initially triggered the rage of the military brass.
The media offensive against Biden's Afghan withdrawal advanced arguments that the military could not to make on its own - at least, not in public. It also provided the military with important cover at the moment when it was at its most vulnerable for its disastrous handling of the entire war. |
|
|---|
|
The White House said Monday that the US has carried out two "successful" airstrikes in Afghanistan since the ISIS attack at the Kabul airport, including Sunday's drone strike that witnesses say killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
"I would say the fact that we have had two successful strikes confirmed by CENTCOM [US Central Command] tells you that our over-the-horizon capacity works and is working," White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
CENTCOM initially said Sunday's drone strike destroyed a vehicle carrying "multiple suicide bombers." After the reports of civilian casualties surfaced, CENTCOM released a statement that it was "aware" of those reports and is investigating further. |
If one scans this week's headlines they are all gloom and doom, running from despair and humiliation to disaster and debacle. But rarely do you see calls for a fundamental reset of the failed U.S. foreign policy of perpetual wars and a rethink the global leadership paradigm.
This is not surprising, since the mainstream media are, with rare exceptions, an essential part of the powerful lobby MICIMATT (the term coined by the former CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, who was responsible for Ronald Reagan's morning briefs) that is actually in charge of this policy.
MICIMATT means "Military-Industrial-Congress-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank" complex. Here are some results of its activity for the last 20 years. |
| Chinas new ambassador to the US delivered a speech on Wednesday urging the US to drop its Cold War mentality towards Beijing. Qin Gangs message to the US is that China is "not the Soviet Union."
"The Soviet Union's collapse was its own making. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union had been rigid, corrupt, closed to the outside world, and detached from the people. It had been obsessed with arms race and external aggression. As a result, the country's development halted," Qin said at an event hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations. |
To most Americans the collapse of Afghanistan called into question Washingtons ability to manage the world. After devoting 20 years, thousands of lives, and trillions of dollars to creating a stable, democratic, and liberal Afghanistan, the entire Potemkin structure collapsed in 11 days.
Hundreds of thousands fled as the Taliban successively captured provincial capitals. Tens of thousands thronged the Kabul airport in a desperate effort to escape the newly proclaimed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. If only a few of them had joined the security forces that were supposed to sustain their country, instead of leaving the fight to those who decided the regime was not worth defending, perhaps the outcome would have been different. |
With the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan complete, Washington has transferred its Afghanistan-related diplomatic operations to Qatar. But the Taliban wants the US and other Western countries that have closed their embassies in Kabul to reopen them as the new Taliban-led government seeks international recognition.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group wants a diplomatic relationship with the US as well as a trade relationship. "America should have only a diplomatic presence in Kabul. We have communication channels with them and we expect them to reopen their embassy in Kabul and we also want to have trade relations with them," he said, according to TOLO News. |
|
|---|
|
Keep your finger on the pulse of US foreign policy. Subscribe to our Daily Digest and each evening, the day's top news stories and editorials are delivered straight to your email. Please support our work by signing up.
|
|
|---|
|
Antiwar.com, 1017 El Camino Real #306, Redwood City, CA 94063 | 323 512 7095 | www.antiwar.com |
|
|---|
|
|
