3 Realities You Aren't Being Told About Afghanistan

January 11, 2017 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - US commander of US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) General John Nicholson's December 2016 briefing was paradoxical and perhaps indicative of the bankrupted foreign policy that defines America's occupation in Afghanistan.

The US Department of Defense published General Nicholson's full briefing titled, "Department of Defense Press Briefing by General Nicholson in the Pentagon Briefing Room." In it, three truths in particular emerged.

1. "Stronger Afghan Military" Still Requires Years More of US Hand-Holding

The briefing paradoxically claimed that America's proxy regime in Kabul it has attempted to prop up for the past 15 years is gaining strength and independence from US-NATO assistance, even as US Marines prepared to deploy back to Afghanistan's Helmand province for what the Pentagon announced will be years more of US troop rotations.

The Washington Post in an article titled, "Thousands of Marines fought in southern Afghanistan. Now, the service is going back," would report that:

About 300 Marines with a unit called Task Force Southwest will deploy, advising the Afghan army�s 215th Corps and Afghan national police with the 505th Zone. The forces will work in part from a large Afghan installation known during earlier Marine operations as Camp Leatherneck, but will be based in other locations and could face combat, senior Marine officers said Friday.

The Post would also report:

Senior Marine officials did not say why the service will take over the mission in Helmand, but it is expected that there could be several rotations of Marine task forces there in coming years.

In other words, promises of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan, promises that formed the foundation of political campaign promises for years, were made in vain with US troops facing an unending, futile commitment to occupying the Central Asian state for years to come, just as US troops did in Vietnam during the 1960s-1970s.

Likewise, claims by military commanders and US policymakers that Afghanistan's government is becoming increasingly "independent" defies even the most basic admissions the US military and government themselves provide in terms of statistics and US troop deployment schedules.

Like the now non-existent South Vietnamese government, the current Afghan government cannot sustain itself without a significant foreign presence, because despite the immense amount of monetary, military and political resources poured into it, it lacks legitimacy in Afghanistan itself where it matters most.

2. US Taxpayers Will Pay Twice for Afghanistan's Ineffectual Military 

General Nicholson's briefing also revealed that the military assets US taxpayers have provided Washington's proxy regime in Kabul will essentially be rendered void since most of them depend on Russian parts and maintenance assistance no longer available under Washington's ever-expanding sanctions targeting Moscow.


General Nicholson, in response to a question during the briefing, would state:

...the Afghans traditionally had a core of MI-17 pilots who were trained on the airframe and some of them very experienced. So early before Crimea, Ukraine, before sanctions, there was international support for continuing with Russian-made airframes. 

That all changed after 2014 and after those sanctions were imposed. So the issue now is the sustainment of that -- of that fleet to continue while we field a new fleet. President Obama forwarded to the Hill a request and the supplemental for purchase of UH-60 alpha model helicopters. So these helicopters will be modified with an improved drivetrain transmission so to enable them to operate better in the environment up there. But it will involve a transition for the pilots.

This means fleets of Mil Mi-17 transport helicopters Afghan forces have used for years will be replaced by US-made Sikorsky (owned by defense giant Lockheed Martin) UH-60 Black Hawks.

With this move, not only will pilots have to be retrained to fly the Black Hawks, but part inventories, airport infrastructure, supply chains, ground crew training and all other aspects necessary to sustain the Black Hawks will have to be established and maintained as well.

In essence, US taxpayers find themselves paying twice for helicopter transport capabilities with the Black Hawks costing drastically more - the entire plan costing hundreds of millions of dollars more according to Reuters - to support an Afghan military already struggling just to survive.

3. The US is not Fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan  

During General Nicholson's briefing, he claimed that the US presence in Afghanistan persisted in order to defeat Al Qaeda and the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS). However, it was clear that listening to his briefing, that the US-backed proxy regime in Kabul's primary threat was the Taliban.

General Nicholson berated Pakistan, Russia and Iran for what he claimed was their collective "malign influence" within Afghanistan. In particular, he condemned Russian and Iran for lending legitimacy to the Taliban.

General Nicholson would claim:

Russia has overtly lent legitimacy to the Taliban. And their narrative goes something like this: that the Taliban are the ones fighting Islamic State, not the Afghan government.

However, General Nicholson strategically omits the fact that the US and some of its closest allies in the Middle East have lent the Taliban legitimacy as well, with the US attempting to negotiate with the group and its ally Qatar allowing the Taliban to open what is for all intents and purposes an embassy in Doha, Qatar's capital.

UK newspaper, The Times, in a 2011 article titled, "Taliban office in Qatar approved by US," would report that:

The US has given its blessing for the Taliban to be brought in from the cold with a critical step towards reconciliation as the world paused to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 

Washington has endorsed plans for the Islamist network to open political headquarters in the gulf state of Qatar by the end of the year. The move has been devised so the West can begin formal peace talks with the Taliban.

More recently, the US State Department's Voice of America media platform in a December 2016 article titled, "Taliban Seeks Recognition for Qatar Office, Direct Talks With US," would report:

The U.S. State Department released a statement Friday that acknowledged American officials have seen the Taliban's statement, and appeared not to explicitly rule out the prospect of talks with the militant group. 

"As we have long said, the only way to end the conflict in Afghanistan is through a peace and reconciliation process with the Taliban. We are ready to accept any political resolution of the conflict between the Afghan government and the Taliban so long as the outcome of any process ensures that the Taliban cease violence, break associations with international terrorism, and accept Afghanistan's constitution, including its protections for women and minorities," the statement said.

This clearly conflicts directly with General Nicholson's statements.

By recognizing the Taliban as a legitimate political movement, and with US allies affording the Taliban offices in their capital cities from which to bolster their legitimacy, the US, not Russia, has done the most to undermine its own narrative regarding the so-called "War on Terror" and the entire premise with which it justifies its continued presence in Afghanistan.

While the US claims that it is fighting Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" in Afghanistan, it is clear that the real battle it fights is against the Taliban and its control over the country vis-a-vis America's proxy regime in Kabul. The negotiated settlement it is trying to concurrently strike with the Taliban as its military campaign against the movement approaches two-decades, is both a bid to save its struggling proxy regime in Kabul, and an acknowledgement of the limitations of US influence in the region.

Coverage of America's ongoing presence in Afghanistan has dwindled within the US and European media specifically because the alleged narrative underpinning the occupation has diverged so drastically from reality. Over the next year, for those who carefully follow the conflict, the US will continue manufacturing excuses to remain in the country while it focuses on both negotiating with the Taliban and attempting to diminish them politically and militarily.

For the Taliban, time is on their side, and if General Nicholson's statements are true about the Taliban receiving protection and resources from abroad are true, then no amount of negotiations or military might within Afghanistan itself will render victory for Washington and its proxies in Kabul.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.

US War in Afghanistan Silently Slips into the Abyss

November 3, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - Despite the United States being engaged in what it calls "reconstruction" in Afghanistan, quarterly reports on their progress doing so reveals expanding violence and deepening poverty.



Washington Times in an article titled, "Afghanistan failures rising, progress eroding 15 years after U.S. intervention," reports that:

Opium production is up 43 percent in Afghanistan, the economy is struggling and the government has lost ground to insurgents over the last year, according to an inspector general�s report released Sunday that shows ongoing failures overshadowing the few signs of hope.

Indeed, every quarter, the "Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction," or SIGAR, submits a report to the US Congress regarding US activities in Afghanistan regarding "reconstruction."

In reality, it is not only an audit that provides insight into America's ongoing, now 15 year long military occupation of Afghanistan, but reveals the very nature of this so-called "reconstruction" process. It is one that ensures inevitably whatever regime sits in Kabul remains entirely dependent on the United States, on immense funding from abroad and amid a conflict that seems only to expand as US troops "drawdown." It also depicts an immensely ineffective "reconstruction" process, riddled with corruption and unsustainable programs that is creating a nation according to US interests, with institutions built by and for America's own endgame, not that of the Afghan population's future.

It also reveals the role of organizations like USAID, depicted as rendering aid to foreign nations, while in reality overseeing an empire of corrupt contractors pursuing ineffective programs amid an unraveling nation.

Building a Nation in Wall Street's Dysfunctional, Unsustainable Image

One of the benefits of destroying an entire nation is the opportunity to rebuild it precisely how the conqueror desires. SIGAR reports, including the most recent, provide valuable insight into this process.


USAID spends billions in Afghanistan doing everything from allegedly building roads and hospitals, to economic programs to train Afghanistan's workforce, to creating Afghanistan's financial institutions. However, even the report itself reveals that despite the massive amount of money and the alleged scale of USAID and other agencies' projects, corruption, violence, infighting and the ongoing battle for the nation between various factions has resulted in systemic dysfunction.

Corruption is not just an aspect of Afghanistan's current government and institutions, it also is revealed in the SIGAR report to be widespread across US and European contractors as well. The report highlights several cases that unfolded just over the reporting period of the October 2016 report:

SIGAR initiated 13 new investigations and closed 28, bringing the total number of ongoing investigations to 254. SIGAR�s suspension and debarment program referred 46 individuals and one company for suspension or debarment based on evidence developed as part of investigations conducted by SIGAR in Afghanistan and the United States.

It appears that "development" is simply a means of profiting for contractors, be they Afghan, American or European and goes far in explaining why poverty has actually increased, not diminished amid America's "reconstruction" process. Additionally, the report reveals that the majority of foreign funding in Afghanistan is going into security forces, not actual economic or institutional development.

And these security forces, the report reveals, are suffering increasingly under widening violence.

Shades of Vietnam 

Reading the SIGAR report will remind one of US rhetoric regarding South Vietnam as it desperately tried to stand up the exhausted, incompetent, corrupt and ultimately doomed regime after US attempts to "search and destroy" North Vietnamese forces ended in the incremental withdrawal of US forces from Southeast Asia.

None of the policies being described in the SIGAR report have worked even with US forces providing for Afghanistan's security, so why would one believe they will suddenly start working with US forces drawing down?

The October 2016 report itself (PDF) admits that in 2016 alone, Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) suffered over 15,000 casualties with over 5,500 deaths. In other words, more ANDSF personnel have died in a single year than all US forces throughout the entire 2001-2016 occupation.

ANDSF, even with brand new equipment provided by the US and its various contractors, are still inadequately armed compared to US and other NATO troops now withdrawing from the nation. For instance, while the US provided close air support (CAS) for its troops and Afghan forces with F-16s, A-10s and other jet aircraft, Afghanistan's "air force" is being provided with a handful (perhaps two dozen) of propeller-driven Embraer A-29 Super Tucano airplanes.

While the aircraft might be an effective system when combined with other modern day military assets, Afghan forces will struggle to employ the small number of aircraft with their limited capabilities across the entirety of Afghanistan's territory.

Like South Vietnamese forces during America's withdrawal amid that war, the reduction of funding, support personnel and weapon deliveries when combined with an increase of nationwide violence will overwhelm the unsustainable and ill-equipped Afghan "air force."

Indescribable Objectives, Unwinnable War

The US failure in Afghanistan is not a matter of military impotence, but rather one of unsustainable strategic and political ambitions no amount of military might could ever fulfill. Like in Vietnam, the absence of practical objectives pursued in the best interests of those nations waging war in Afghanistan has led to the current, predictable impasse.

The world was told that the US invaded and to this day occupies Afghanistan for the purpose of "defeating Al Qaeda" by rooting out the Taliban who supposedly harbored the former. In reality, the attacks on September 11, 2001 targeting the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. were carried out primarily by Saudis, with Al Qaeda itself being an organization funded, armed and provided both its geopolitical objectives and ideological underpinning by Persian Gulf states and their Western allies, as currently evident in Syria.

Were America's objective to truly uproot Al Qaeda, it would have invaded and occupied the Arabian Peninsula, not the mountains of Afghanistan. What the US is actually attempting to do in Afghanistan is pursue global hegemony, fighting the Taliban and other Afghan tribes whose source of military, political and financial power flows both within and beyond Afghanistan's borders, including among political and economic circles the US is unable to reach. Thus the war in Afghanistan, just like its attempt to influence Vietnam's geopolitical future, was ultimately doomed before the first shot was even fired.

Likewise, for those who do still believe US troops are in Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda, it must be remembered that Al Qaeda's source of financial, military and political strength is not actually located within Afghanistan, but well beyond it in the Persian Gulf. Until the very heart of the hydra is pierced, the process of lopping off its heads only to be confronted with more will continue indefinitely.

For military and civilian contractors, this process is an endless source of profits and power. For the soldiers involved, American, European or Afghan, it is an endless sacrifice of their blood and their respective people's wealth and very future.  Endless wars incapable of being won are the truest sign of poor leadership or intentional impropriety (or both). For those charged with defending their nation, their people, their wealth, resources and very future, ignoring this internal threat is by far worse than losing a battle or war abroad.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine �New Eastern Outlook�.