Stephen Lendman

Trump’s Monday address on Afghanistan didn’t surprise. What a difference an election makes!

In 2013, he tweeted: “We should have a speedy withdrawal” from Afghanistan. “Why should we keep wasting our money - rebuild the US!”

In 2014, he denounced Obama for “keeping our soldiers in Afghanistan for at least another year. He is losing two wars simultaneously.”

In 2015, he called US Middle East wars a “mess…a terrible mistake. We made a terrible mistake getting involved there in the first place.”

“We had real brilliant thinkers that didn’t know what the hell they were doing. And it’s a mess. It’s a mess. And at this point, you probably have to (stay) because that thing will collapse about two seconds after they leave. Just as I said that Iraq was going to collapse after we leave.”

He called for keeping 5,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan, asking: “Do I love anything about it? No. I think it’s important…that we keep a presence there…”

Days after his inauguration, he addressed Afghanistan, saying “(i)t is carnage. It’s horrible carnage,” suggesting it’s time to get out - before delegating warmaking authority to hawkish generals.

In 2016, he called war in Iraq “a terrible and a stupid thing. It’s going to destabilize the Middle East. And that’s exactly what it’s done. It’s been a disaster.”

He escalated the rape and destruction of Mosul on his watch, massacring thousands of civilians - Tal Afar his latest target, 50 miles west of Mosul, a city of 200,000 in 2014.

How many thousands of civilians will die before US terror-bombing ends? When will the rape of Raqqa end? How many more regional targets does he intend to ravage and destroy, defenseless civilians paying the greatest price?

Trump is hostage to America’s military/industrial complex like his predecessors. The Clinton co-presidency raped Yugoslavia, intermittently terror-bombed Iraq, among other high crimes.

GW Bush blustered about being a “wartime president.” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Obama bragged about waging war throughout his tenure - naked aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen.

Trump continued what his predecessors began, escalating war in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, along with invading Somalia for the first time since withdrawal of US forces in 1994.

On Monday, he announced forever war and occupation of Afghanistan, escalating a long ago lost cause instead of responsibly ending what never should have been launched.

His remarks didn’t surprise, saying America “must seek an honorable and enduring outcome…a plan for victory.”

There’s nothing “honorable” about naked aggression, no possible “victory,” no “enduring outcome” as long as US and allied forces occupy the country.

Trump lied saying pullout “would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al-Qaeda, would instantly fill…” America created and supports ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

The way to end their threat is by no longer arming, funding, training and directing their fighters. War in Afghanistan and other US theaters has nothing to do with combating terrorists used as imperial foot soldiers.

Trump’s address was warmed-over Bush/Cheney and Obama, along with war goddess Hillary as secretary of state.

Thousands more US troops will be deployed to Afghanistan, Trump not disclosing numbers or other details, wanting information about escalated war kept secret.

US forces coming home in body bags make disturbing headlines. Others wounded and disabled go unreported - for many their lives shattered, devastated by disabling injuries and/or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

For some, suicide ends their ordeal on active duty or after leaving the military.

A Monday article explained why America came to Afghanistan to stay. The country is strategically important, a Central Asia geopolitical prize close to Russia.

Controlling it is part of a plan to encircle Russia and China with US military bases - part of a longterm regime change strategy, wanting pro-Western puppet rule replacing their sovereign independence, eliminating the only nations standing in the way of unchallenged US global dominance.

Permanent occupation is planned to exploit regional oil, gas and other resources, including significant Afghan riches.

It’s to maintain country as the world’s largest opium producer, used to produce heroin, flooding world markets with it, the CIA and Wall Street profiting from it.

War in the country was lost years ago. America’s objective is permanent occupation, maintaining the illusion of governance in Kabul, illegitimate US-installed puppet rule over increasingly shrinking territory, lost to Taliban fighters wanting their country back, occupying forces out.

Trump intends continuing America’s longest war in modern times forever. War-profiteers demand it, benefitting hugely from endless slaughter, destruction and human misery.

Along with power-grabbing, that’s what imperial wars are all about - not to achieve peace and stability as falsely claimed.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."