Signed Security Agreement Locks in Ten More Years of Afghan War

SOURCE: COMMON DREAMS

Bilateral Security Agreement, signed Tuesday, will allow thousands of US troops to remain in the country for at least another decade.

Ambassador James B. Cunningham, left, and the new Afghan national security adviser, Hanif Atmar, after signing the security pact. (Photo: Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Locking in at least another decade of U.S. military entanglement, the United States and Afghanistan signed a controversial Bilateral Security Agreement at a ceremony in Kabul on Tuesday.

The provisions of the pact will allow for U.S. training, funding, and arming of the Afghan military and keep thousands of U.S. troops beyond what President Obama has repeatedly called the "end of the war" later his year.  A key part of the agreement also extends immunity to U.S. service members under Afghan law.

Critics charge that the deal allows the Obama administration to pay lip-service to ending an unpopular war while, in fact, paving the way for long-term occupation and dependency. "A country's sovereignty is very important," Laila Rashidie, member of Afghans United for Justice, told Common Dreams. "Thirteen years of U.S.-led military occupation continues to compromise this. A truly free Afghanistan would not depend on U.S. troops."

Signing the BSA was the first major act of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who was inaugurated on Monday following a hotly contested election clouded by allegations of fraud. The U.S.-backed president clinched the security deal at a signing ceremony at Kabul's presidential palace on Tuesday, currying praise from the Obama administration, which had voiced frustration at outgoing President Hamid Karzai's refusal to sign. The deal is set to go into effect in January 2015 and last until the year 2024.

The deal stipulates long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and access to numerous bases and installations in the country, including facilities inside Bagram Air Base, home to the notorious U.S. military prison. The pact does not detail the exact number of U.S. troops to remain, but Obama has previously stated he plans to cut U.S. troops down to 9,800 by the beginning of 2015, then cut that number by half at the end of next year, with further cuts slated for the end of 2016. As of earlier this year, there were approximately 50,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, 34,000 of which were American.

Peter Lems, Program Officer at the American Friends Service Committee, told Common Dreams that even if the U.S. sticks with Obama's timetable for troop reductions, of which there is no guarantee, the stated plan does not constitute a real end to the war.

"That's one of the biggest problems with the War on Terror since September 11: these wars don't end," said Lems. "We have this crazy situation where we have undeclared wars and, perhaps because of the nature of undeclared conflicts, it's easy to look at them as dissipating but never-ending."

The deal also allows the U.S. to pursue "counter-terrorism" missions as long as they "complement" those of the Afghan military and "authorizes United States government aircraft and civil aircraft that are operated by or exclusively for United States forces to enter, exit, overfly, land, take off, conduct aerial refueling, and move within the territory of Afghanistan." Critics warn that the stipulation is likely to allow the U.S. to continue its covert drone wars in against the region, including neighboring Pakistan.

Under the agreement, the U.S. is to play a critical role in "advising, training, equipping, supporting, and sustaining" the Afghan military, as well as "developing intelligence sharing capabilities; strengthening Afghanistan’s Air Force capabilities; conducting combined military exercises." Many warn that "training" is in fact cover for holding onto bases and other geopolitical footholds.
According to Lems, this provision sets the conditions for long-term U.S. domination. "To have the U.S. fully fund that apparatus will lead to dependence, but also encourage Afghan officials to use force and violence the way the U.S. has,"  he said.

Meanwhile, U.S. service members are granted immunity under Afghan laws. The issue of immunity for U.S. troops has long been a point of contention for the Afghan people, who have faced a staggering civilian death toll, as well as a spate of high-profile massacres, including the 2012 Panjwai massacre, in which 16 Afghan civilians were gunned down and killed and 6 more wounded by U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

The approval of the deal, which will keep U.S. aid dollars flowing, was championed by Ghani as "helpful for Afghan stability and prosperity and for the stability of region and that of the world."

But critics counter that this is simply an example of how the U.S. uses militarized aid as a tool for dominating poor countries.

"There already is long-term dependency," said a human rights analyst who visits Afghanistan regularly and requested anonymity to protect the security of NGOs working on the ground. "The Afghan army would collapse overnight if the U.S. pulled its funding. The Afghan sees signing this agreement as a key piece to keeping aid going."

The Bilateral Security Agreement was a condition for NATO's status of forces agreement, signed later on Tuesday, which extends similar privileges to thousands of foreign troops now slated to remain in Afghanistan past the end of this year. 

Imperial Crusade #989: ‘As Bad as a Crime, a Blunder'

Source: LewRockwell.com

Having nearly provoked war over Ukraine with nuclear-armed Russia, the Obama administration has now launched a full-scale crusade in Iraq and Syria against the evil Saracens of ISIS.

America’s aerial might, including B-1 heavy bombers, is plastering ISIS miscreants. Washington’s Arab allies and  rightwing governments in Canada and Australia have joined the fray. The British will be next.

ISIS reserved particular venom for the French, referring to them as “dirty, spiteful” French (the Brits will love this one) whose warplanes joined the bombing crusade.

The new plan seems to be: “Kill’em all and let God sort them out,” a Vietnam-era slogan echoing the original from the Middle Ages.

The real problem is that the White House’s strategy looks like it’s being run by two angry women, Susan Rice and UN ambassador Samantha Power. Neither they nor President Barack Obama seems to have any grasp of military or geopolitical strategy. It’s amateur hour driven by a frenzy of alarmist hysteria from politicians and the media.

Iran’s president put it perfectly when he called America’s new Syria-Iraq a “blunder,” adding “certain intelligence agencies have put blades in the hands of madmen, who now spare no one.”

While the US is cooking up a new, bigger mess in the Levant, the old mess in Afghanistan only gets worse. Last week, Washington’s colonial bureau finally managed to cobble together a political deal in Afghanistan between two rivals for the presidency, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah.

Ashraf Ghani is Washington’s choice for president; Abdullah will act as ‘chief executive,’ a newly created role of prime minister sure to break down. To no surprise, they are expected to quickly sign an agreement to keep 25,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan for years to come.

Outgoing Afghan president Hamid Karzai, installed in office by the CIA soon after the 2001 US invasion, loosed a Parthian shaft at his former American allies, asserting they did not want peace in Afghanistan, rather ongoing occupation.

Karzai, who has emerged as a genuine nationalist, has stated that the only thing the US and its allies accomplished in Afghanistan was to kill large numbers of civilians.

Over in Iraq, former prime minister Nouri Maliki, another CIA-installed “asset,” also refused to sign a pact allowing long-term garrisoning by US troops. So out he went. Now Karazi joins Maliki, recalling Henry Kissinger’s quip that it’s more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.

The US may shuffle the deck in Afghanistan, but its basic problems remain. Ghani, a former academic and banker, is a decent person, but he is far too westernized, has little support among majority Pashtuns, and is widely seen as a willing American collaborator and sock puppet.

His erstwhile rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is the front-man for the Northern Alliance, a Tajik gang from the Panjshir Valley that was a Soviet ally when Moscow occupied Afghanistan.

The Uzbek warlord, Rashid Dostam, a major war criminal and Soviet collaborator, joined the Northern Alliance and became its strongman.  

The Northern Alliance collaborated with the US after its invasion, just as Tajiks and Uzbeks had done with the Soviets.  Afghanistan’s communists gained control of the brutal national intelligence service, interior ministry, police, and foreign affairs.  But their main business remained narcotics.

Taliban virtually eliminated Afghanistan’s drug trade save in the region controlled by the Northern Alliance.  Today, Afghanistan’s drug production and exports have reached what the UN calls “record highs.”

The US remains the proud owner of the world’s leading producer of heroin. The drug lords that kept Karzai in power are all close US allies. But no one in Washington cares to talk about the dirty underside of Afghan politics or how its government runs on drug money. Foreign aid is the only other source of government income.

Most Pashtuns detest the suave Abdullah Abdullah and his fellow Tajiks. For their part, Tajiks look down on Pashtun as backwards mountaineers. Everyone mistrusts the minority Uzbek and Hazara, both of whom also collaborated with the US occupation or Iran.

Taliban, Afghanistan’s most popular and authentic political movement, is predominantly Pashtun. Washington’s refusal to talk directly to the demonized Taliban ensures that there will be no real political compromise in wretched Afghanistan, which has been at war for the past 35 years.

The half-forgotten Afghan War has cost the US close to 2,500 dead, 17,000 wounded and over $1 trillion.  The “reconstructed” Afghan army will be as likely to collapse without direct US support as was Iraq’s army, three divisions of which ran away at first contact with ISIS fighters.

So why does Washington keep pumping billions into Afghanistan, which has no oil? Because, in keeping with imperial logic and strategy, it remains the best pipeline route to export the oil riches of the Caspian Basin south to Karachi on the Arabian Sea. And because Afghanistan overwatches Central Asia, where China is increasingly active.

Lastly, because the mighty US military industrial complex cannot accept being defeated by Pashtun tribesmen. Nor can the American, Canadian, British, and French politicians who sent their soldiers to fight and die in this useless war.