The mainstream media are divided between two ways of interpreting the fall of Kabul. For some, the Democrats are cowards and the departure from Afghanistan discourages the allies. For others, they have played well and placed a thorn in the side of the Russians and the Chinese. These two views correspond to the traditional paradigm of the American Empire. But for Thierry Meyssan, Washington is, since September 11, 2001, in the hands of the followers of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski doctrine. The United States is now behaving like a racketeer. The chaos will continue in Afghanistan for a long time. Russian, Chinese and European companies who wish to do so will be able to mine in Afghanistan, but only if they entrust their security to the US forces. Those who refuse this protection will be eliminated.

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The fall of Kabul is leading to terrible scenes of flight and despair. Let’s leave aside the fact that the fleeing people are mostly not peaceful translators from Western embassies, but collaborators in the US counter-insurgency with blood dripping from their hands. What we are seeing is a debacle that should make us lose faith in the power of ‘America’.

Ø  51% of Americans disapprove of President Joe Biden’s foreign policy.

Ø  60% particularly disapprove of his policy towards Afghanistan

Ø  63% say the war was not worth fighting [1].

Almost all Americans who fought in Iraq are very shocked.

Yet, at worst, it is clear that Washington knew perfectly well that the Afghan army would not stand up to the Taliban, who were theoretically three times less numerous and much less well equipped. The West Point CTC published a study in January to predict this catastrophe [2]. The question was not whether the Taliban would win, but when President Biden would let them win.

The US-Taliban negotiations, which have dragged on for years and were suddenly concluded by President Biden, must be interpreted as a voluntary surrender of power to the Taliban. One wonders why it took hundreds of thousands of deaths, astronomical sums of money and the efforts of four successive presidents for Washington to drive the Taliban out of Kabul and then back in; and why President Biden decided to assume the role of the defeated.

The same misunderstanding arose when the Baker-Hamilton Commission led to the US withdrawal from Iraq and the then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, unhesitatingly assumed the role of the vanquished; a misunderstanding that still persisted three months ago when Rumsfeld died.

It is time to stop listening to the politicians and to read the military. Politicians only tell us what we can accept to hear. We are always on the right side and we will only die for Democracy. The military, on the other hand, does not try to seduce us, but to understand what is expected of them. So they do not write to flatter our illusions, but expose the unvarnished truth.

As I have explained many times [3], in the days following the 9/11 attacks, the US Army published an article by Colonel Ralph Peters stating that the US no longer needed to win wars, but to organise instability in certain regions of the world, particularly in the ‘broader Middle East’. He went on to say that states would have to be recomposed along ethnic lines, i.e. separating mixed peoples, and that this could only be done through ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity. He ended his presentation by assuring that the Pentagon could always delegate its powers to mercenaries to do the dirty work [4]. In the excitement of 9/11, no one picked up on this article openly claiming to be preparing for heinous crimes.

Five years later, Ralph Peters published the map that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were working on in 2001 [5]. A panic ensued among all the military leadership in the wider Middle East: no one was protected, not even the US allies. Various changes of alliance followed. But it was not until 2011 and the attack on Libya (then a US ally) that we saw what was happening.

Since then, we have seen that the war in Afghanistan, which was supposed to last until Osama bin Laden fled, has lasted for 20 years; that the war in Iraq, which was supposed to last until the fall of President Saddam Hussein, has lasted for 17 years; that the war in Libya, which was supposed to last until the fall of Muamar Gaddafi, has lasted for 10 years; that the war in Syria, which was supposed to last until the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, has lasted for 10 years. Moreover, we have seen Al Qaeda (historically a creation of the CIA) and Daesh (historically a creation of Ambassador John Negroponte) commit crimes against humanity all along the lines announced by Colonel Ralph Peters. And we know that these terrorist organisations are funded, armed and supervised by the British and the Americans.

Yes, the “endless war” declared by President George W. Bush is not about “fighting terrorism”, but about using terrorism to “destabilise” an entire region. This was the title of Colonel Peters’ article in 2001: “Stability: America’s enemy”.

This being the case, we must reinterpret the fall of Kabul in the light of this new strategy. For two years, in 2002-03, Admiral Arthur Cebrowski went to explain it in all the US military academies. He met all the current US general officers. This strategy was popularised for the general public by Cebrowski’s assistant, Thomas Barnett - although his book [6] has not been translated.

The fall of Kabul fulfills the central objective of this strategy on the condition that the Taliban do not succeed in establishing a stable regime - and without allies they will not be able to do so-. The escape of the US counterinsurgency collaborators, if they manage to pass themselves off as peaceful translators, will allow terrorism to spread in the countries that will receive them. This is already being denounced by President Vladimir Putin. The transfer of military equipment given to the Afghan army in the hands of the Taliban will allow them to attack their neighbours. Unlike Daesh, the Taliban already have a biometric file of almost their entire population and an air force with a fleet of over 200 fighter planes. The war in Central Asia will therefore be even more terrible than the war in the wider Middle East.

Last but not least. Some commentators believe that Washington has abandoned Afghanistan in order to create problems for Russia and China. This is not the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy at all. According to the latter, we should not fight these great powers, but rather turn them into clients. They should be helped to exploit Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and many others, but only under the protection of the US army.

Understand, Washington no longer thinks like a rival of the Roman Empire, but like a racketeer. It does not build triumphal arches to its glory anywhere and even accepts that its president, Joe Biden, is defeated in Afghanistan. He seeks to dominate the world in the shadows and to make as much money as possible.

You think I’m imagining a doomsday scenario? Then tell me where the flaw is in my argument!

Notes

[1] «Afghanistan war unpopular amid chaotic pullout», AP-NORC poll, by Josh Boak, Hannah Fingerhut & Ben Fox, August 19, 2021. «Nationwide Issues Survey», Convention of States Action-Trafalgar Group, August 2021.

[2] «Afghanistan’s Security Forces Versus the Taliban: A Net Assessment», Jonathan Schroden, CTC Sentinel, January 2021 (Vol 14, #1).

[3] «Comment redessiner le Moyen-Orient ?» in L’Effroyable imposture II, par Thierry Meyssan, 1er éd Alphée (2006), 2ème éd Demi-Lune (2020).

[4] “Stability. America’s ennemy”, Ralph Peters, Parameters, #31-4, Winter 2001.

[5] “Blood borders. How a better Middle East would look”, Ralph Peters, Armed Forces Journal, June 1, 2006.

[6] The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century, Thomas P. M. Barnett, Paw Prints (2004).

Courtesy Thierry Meyssan; Translation Roger Lagassé

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