Exclusive: America’s adventures in Afghanistan – dating back to the 1980s – have led to one disaster after another with President Trump and other politicians afraid to finally admit failure, as Jonathan Marshall explains.
Exclusive: Rather than rethink U.S. policy in the Mideast, particularly the entangling alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia, Official Washington pushes schemes to perpetuate the “forever war” in Afghanistan, writes James W Carden.
Afghanistan has been a disaster for U.S. policymakers since Presidents Carter and Reagan started funding Islamists almost four decades ago and then the U.S. began fighting them post-9/11, a failure that needs ending, says Alon Ben-Meir.
Much like President Obama, President Trump was elected as the relative “peace candidate” but – once in office – has veered into Official Washington’s neocon “logic” of endless war, as Ivan Eland describes.
Official Washington likes to think of its wars as “humanitarian,” supposedly bringing “democracy” to faraway lands, but the wars really bring death, destruction and despair, says peace activist Kathy Kelly.
The bloody history of Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1980s – how the U.S. “victory” over the Soviets morphed into decades of chaos – is a cautionary tale for today’s Syria, writes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
President Trump is plunging ahead with expanded Mideast wars, with emerging escalations in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, building on the bloody policies of his predecessors, as retired Col. Ann Wright explains.
By handing off Afghan War decisions to “his generals,” President Trump may be conceding his unfitness as commander in chief, but he is also betraying voters who hoped he might end the war, says ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.
Exclusive: The failure to hold the Iraq War perpetrators accountable has led to false narratives about “successful surges” that never really succeeded — and now may allow the Afghan slaughter to escalate, reports James W Carden.
Exclusive: Recent Russia-bashing has included U.S. claims that Moscow is arming the Afghan Taliban, but a senior U.S. intelligence official splashed cold water on that claim in barely noticed testimony, writes Jonathan Marshall.