Establishment journalists and politicians are despairingly asking: Why did we fail in our well-meaning efforts to help the Afghan people? What were our mistakes? But they ignore their first mistake: creating the Taliban. The USA’s attempts to dominate Afghanistan and its resources began 40 years ago when Jimmy Carter in …
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Turkey won’t accept ‘refugee burden’ from Afghanistan
Turkey, which already hosts more than 300,000 Afghans, has warned it doesn’t have the resources to accept additional migrants from the war-torn country. Turkey cannot accept the influx of migrants fleeing Afghanistan, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned on Sunday, as foreign governments scrambled to evacuate their citizens and at-risk …
Read More »Iraqi Kurdish leader helps ease Turkey-UAE tensions
Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani helped facilitate a recent phone call between Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and United Arab Emirates (UAE) de facto ruler Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nayhan have spoken on the …
Read More »Drone attack on Saudi airport injures 8
The second attack on the Abha airport in 24 hours injured several people, state-run media outlets reported. Eight people were injured in the latest drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport, the country’s state-run news media reported Tuesday. The drone was intercepted and shrapnel struck the runway, the Saudi-led coalition …
Read More »Taliban victory inspires pro-Iran militias in Iraq
The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has encouraged Sunni extremist armed groups in Syria and pro-Iran Shiite militias in Iraq. As the world focuses on the end of the US military presence in Afghanistan and the Taliban’s rapid takeover of most of the country, culminating with the handover of Kabul on …
Read More »Baidena izgāšanās šķeļ NATO sabiedrotos
Nepārdomātā un ar sabiedrotajiem slikti saskaņotā vai daudzos gadījumos pat vispār nesaskaņotā ASV bruņoto spēku izvešana no Afganistānas ir izraisījusi plašu rezonansi arī Eiropas valstīs, kuru varas iestādēm šis solis rada ne mazākas, bet varbūt pat lielākas problēmas nekā pašām ASV. 2015. gadā par NATO padomdevēja, apmācību un atbalsta misiju …
Read More »Britain must give Afghan refugees the chance to thrive
An imaginative programme of integration is needed, involving above all lessons in English and job opportunities Nato’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan has come to an ignominious end with thousands of people who worked with Western forces and other organisations still trapped in the country. Questions will be asked for some …
Read More »How the defense industry helped prolong the war in Afghanistan
CACI is a well-known company with a $907 million contract in Afghanistan — it also has undisclosed ties to think tanks opposed to withdrawal. Weapons firms and defense contractors consume over half of the Pentagon’s $740 billion budget and the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan poses a threat …
Read More »The dangerous rise of a new stab-in-the-back myth
The foreign policy elite are focused on defending their reputations and privileges, not in confronting failure in Afghanistan. When the Nazi Party consolidated power in Germany in 1933, they enshrined into their version of history the myth that the German Army had not lost in the Great War but had …
Read More »Lessons From The Taliban: Only A Secular Democracy Can Keep India Integrated – OpEd
The Taliban’s capture of power in Afghanistan has grave geostrategic ramifications. It signals Islamic resurgence, affecting not only the wide swathe of Muslim nations stretching from North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, Central Asia, Gulf nations, South Asia, to Southeast Asia, but also countries with large Muslim populations. Is it …
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