Skip to content
March 21, 2023
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas

Primary Menu
  • News
  • Opinion
  • About us
    • About us
    • Who we are – Becoming a Volunteer
    • Editorial guidelines for contributors
    • Our Sources
      • Venezuelan Sources
      • International Sources
    • Contact us
  • Categories
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Security and Defense
    • International
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Europe
      • Oceania
      • US/Canada
    • Latin America and ALBA-TCP
      • South America
      • Central America and the Caribbean (+Mexico)
    • Ideology-Commune-Labor
    • Health-Education-Sport-Culture-Technology
    • Solidarity and Social Movements
    • OT Specials
  • Support Us
Light/Dark Button
YouTube Channel
  • Home
  • Opinion
  • Afghanistan—What Next?
  • Asia
  • International
  • Opinion

Afghanistan—What Next?

September 8, 2021

By Fra Hughes Belfast – Sep 6, 2021

So where do we go from here? Better still, where do we even begin to unravel the pain, sorrow, and hardships Afghans have endured for decades?

Do we start with the American invasion twenty years ago? Its objective was to end terrorism as part of the ‘War on Terror’ after the 9-11 attacks, the anniversary of which occurs shortly?

Can we usefully employ this timescale of American and NATO interference in the internal affairs of the Afghan people? A  prelude to war on Iraq? Should we start a timeline from 2001? If we cannot ignore the transgressions of the Taliban while in power, surely we cannot ignore how they came to power in the first place?

Should the timeline begin with the Taliban gaining control in Kabul, or must we delve back even further to the government that ruled Afghanistan prior to the rise of the Taliban?

Now, I am not a historian and the situation has been complex for a very long time but let’s just simplify things a little bit.

After three Anglo-Afghan wars, a monarchy continued to rule Afghanistan until a bloodless coup was led by General and former Prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan on July 17, 1973.

Born into the royal family he deposed the King and inaugurated a one-party-style political system installing himself a supreme leader as president of the Republic of Afghanistan.

Economic reforms were promised but failed to materialise as events on the ground became unstable. As president, he led a purge of the Soviet-aligned Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). One of its leaders was assassinated and several of its officials; arrested. Many went into hiding and led a military coup on April 28, 1978, deposing Daoud Khan. He and his family were killed and a secular communist government was then established.

With Afghanistan now led by a secular, pro-Soviet government at the height of the cold war between American capitalism and Soviet communist ideologies, the stage was being set for a proxy war financed by America to destabilise the country and trap Soviet troops in a Vietnam-type quagmire of military entanglement.

RELATED CONTENT: “Regressive and Conservative Forces Historically Promoted by Imperialist Forces in Afghanistan Have Prolonged Wars”

Many analysts and historians have claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency set out to recruit, arm, finance, and train Islamic fundamentalists? People who through their religious outlook and practices, similar to the type of Islam practiced by Saudi Arabia, could be radicalised in order to incentivise an armed opposition to the government of Afghanistan. While opposition to the communist government was already established, it was about to be fully financed by America, Saudi Arabia, and others. Pakistan was already a haven for the Afghan opposition.

Under Operation Cyclone, the Central Intelligence Agency of America financed and armed the Afghan opposition between 1979 and 1989.

A civil war erupted between ‘the mujahideen’ who were led by, among others, Ahmad Shah Massoud, joined later by Saudi Arabian Osama Bin Laden, and the secular government of Afghanistan, that had invited the Soviet Army into Afghanistan to help restore order.

The protagonists were ready. The stage was set, the actors employed, armed, and financed, and the war began in earnest.

The Mujahideen trained and financed by the American government and others succeeded in destroying the secular government. The Taliban took control of Kabul.

Human rights were repressed and women especially were forced to conform to Islamic law.

America won the proxy war. Their surrogate army, which repressed women and arguably de-evolved human rights by 100 years, seized power and the American administration was full of self-congratulatory smugness.

Then began the systemic misrule of Afghanistan by the reactionary forces of Islam, the Taliban.

The mujahideen, a collection of opposition forces, then began an internal struggle between the Northern Alliance forces and the Taliban in 1996. This struggle ended with the American-led invasion of 2001.

Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency ISI played a major role on behalf of America during the Mujahideen revolt and harbored its leaders.

Many of those who fought on the side of the Afghan Mujahideen were not even Afghans but Islamic extremists from many other Arab countries.

With claims of Al Qaeda Islamic militants now training in Afghanistan, and the country a hotbed for fundamental Islamists, America blamed Bin Laden and others for the 9-11 attacks on the twin towers. Although nearly all those accused of perpetrating this atrocity were Saudi Arabian, and the only planes allowed to leave America in the immediate aftermath of the attacks were Osama bin Laden’s family, America duly attacked Afghanistan. This was despite claims the Taliban had offered to help America hold those responsible to account?

RELATED CONTENT: How Elite US Institutions Created Afghanistan’s Neoliberal President Ashraf Ghani, who Stole $169 Million from His Country

The Taliban had been part of the mujahideen front which took control of Afghanistan. The Taliban now controlled 90% of the country while various warlords and drugs gangs involved in the Northern Alliance controlled the countries northeast corner.

The puppets of American imperialism, the Mujahideen, now the Taliban, went from Washington’s brave fighters for freedom to the terrorists who needed to be rooted out and destroyed when America and its allies bombed parts of Afghanistan back to the stone age.

A twenty-year invasion and occupation costing an estimated $2 trillion alongside countless allied and Afghan deaths have finally ended.

American troops withdrew in a negotiated humiliating retreat on August 31, 2021.

I asked at the beginning of this piece, What next for Afghanistan?

Well, I fear, more violence, destabilisation, death, and destruction.

With the Taliban now back in charge of affairs in Afghanistan amid claims they want to pursue national reconciliation with the Northern Alliance, who would benefit from the disruption of this initiative?

The new Sino-Soviet cooperation in rebuilding an economic supply line into a revitalised economic Eurasia will be a focal point of American and European sanctions and destruction.

American troops may well have left Afghanistan. No more NATO boots on the ground—but the economic cooperation policies pursued by China and Russia to include vast investment in infrastructure projects throughout Eurasia to include Afghanistan may yet see a new proxy war aimed at the Taliban government. In reality, it will be yet another war against Russian, and now Chinese, economic cooperation in the region.

While NATO and America pursue a military dominance in a hegemonic new unipolar world order, Russia,  China, and increasingly many others, from Iran to Venezuela, pursue a cooperative, multipolar, mutually benefitting economic strategy. America will use every vestige of influence along with the EU to destroy, destabilise, and attack the new Belt and Road initiative led by China and supported by most Eurasian and African countries.

The war on terror is nothing more than a capitalist-imperialist attack on democracy and the freedom of sovereign nations, led by those who claim to cherish democracy and freedom yet they continually bomb, invade, sanction, murder, displace, and maim millions, all in the name of humanitarian intervention.

I fear Afghanistan will not see peace and stability. I fully expect the Northern Alliance and now Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, to give its American name to be used and directed by America to disrupt the Belt and Road initiative and have continued war in the region.

 

Featured image: © WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images Taliban Badri special-force fighters arriving at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the US has pulled all its troops out of the country. WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

(The North Belfast Journal)

Want More?

Don't want to be a victim of the Algorithm?

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER WITH ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT VENEZUELA

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Fra Hughes
Website | + posts

Fra Hughes is an Irish political activist, commentator, and author. His most recent books are My Walk with Palestine: an Activist's Tale and Voices from Donbass.

  • Fra Hughes
    #molongui-disabled-link
    The Russian and NATO flags in contrast to each other. Photo: NATO
    February 26, 2023
    Russian Roulette: The Ruble Rises as European Economies Crumble
  • Fra Hughes
    #molongui-disabled-link
    A motorcycle belonging to security forces burns in a street crowded with cars amidst 2022 riots in Tehran, Iran. Photo: West Asia News Agency.
    February 20, 2023
    Is Iran About to Come Under Further Attack?
  • Fra Hughes
    #molongui-disabled-link
    Two talon-like hands over a scene of destruction, representing Israel and Ukraine. Photo: Al Mayadeen.
    December 21, 2022
    'Israel' and Ukraine: Two Sides With One Ideology?
  • Fra Hughes
    #molongui-disabled-link
    Photo composition with the Big Ben Tower in the center and the London Bridge in the background, with a red pointing down arrow as a reference to UK's poor economic performance. Photo: Al Mayadeen – English.
    November 17, 2022
    Five Prime Ministers, Three Proxy Wars, and One Failed Economy... Welcome to Great Britain in the 22nd Century
Tags: Afghanistan ISI ISIS-K Kabul Mohammed Daoud Khan mujahideen Osama Bin Laden Pakistan Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan secular communist government Taliban US Imperialism

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)

Continue Reading

Previous Previous post:

Venezuela Denounces Assault on Monómeros by Colombia’s Superintendency

Next Next post:

Loyalty

Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter

We keep your data private and share your data only with third parties that make this service possible. Read our Privacy Policy.

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

NEWS: Most Viewed 72 Hours

Calendar

March 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Feb    

Categories

OPINION: Most Viewed 72 hours

We are on Telegram


Receive our news directly in your cellphone or PC, join us on our TELEGRAM channel: https://t.me/OrinocoTribune1

 

Download TELEGRAM, click the link above and then press the JOIN button.

We are on Discord


Now we are also on Discord you will be able to follow our every move and interact with our team.

Join us by clicking here



All our work is free to use and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

We are on Reddit

If you are more into REDDIT, join our Orinoco Tribune Community.

 

Just click below and then click JOIN
https://www.reddit.com/r/OrinocoTribune/

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Reddit
  • Telegram
  • TikTok
  • LinkedIn
  • Discord
Copyleft, No rights reserved.

Support us, DONATE NOW!