Press TV
September 28, 2016
A US drone strike has killed at least 21 people in the eastern Nangarhar province, with Afghan sources saying that more than a dozen of them were civilians.
Esmatullah Shinwari, a Nangarhar lawmaker, told the Associated Press that a crowd had gathered at the tribal leader’s house in the Achin district to welcome home his return from the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia when the drone struck.
At least 12 people were wounded in the attack, including the tribal leader, he said.
Unnamed Afghan sources have said at least 13 of the victims were civilians.
The spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, confirmed that a “counter-terrorism airstrike” had been conducted in Achin district early Wednesday.
“US forces did conduct one counter-terrorism airstrike in Achin district, Nangarhar Province, Sept. 28, and for operational security reasons, we do not discuss the details of counter-terror operations,” he said in a statement.
“We are aware of some claims of Afghan casualties,” he said, adding that investigations were underway.
Local Afghan sources said the US drone attack left at least 25 civilian casualties.
The people of Afghanistan have been suffering from violence and insecurity since the US and its allies invaded the country as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror in 2001. Many parts of the country still remain plagued by militancy despite the presence of foreign troops. The military invasion removed Taliban, but militants still push to wrest control over the war-ravaged country.
By:
KABULI (Chardee)
UNDER THE SHADOW OF ANOTHER
“GREAT GAME”
The Collapse Of The Soviet Union
*Early 1990’s
Tacit understanding of the cold war diplomacy was preventing Islamic countries from playing a significant role in world affairs: A form of latent containment policy. Then, right after the Soviet downfall, the Western military strategists took up the mantle of the big bully on the block of nations in order to preserve centuries old continuation of special privileges- “Carte Blanche”.
That is how the simmering social tensions of the early 1990’s in Central Asia, prompted the Western intelligence agencies to quietly pursue this belligerent policy of bringing seceding Islamic Ex-Soviet Republics either under immediate dictatorial fold of the ex-communist leaderships (Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan) and/or ignite anarchies (Tajikistan).
Then; as the focus shifted to other poorly-defended Islamic hot spots, bands of eclectically outfitted foreign and domestic proxy forces were getting mobilized and loosened into wild chase against the local defenders: English maintained Indo-Nepalese Gurkha foot soldiers acclimed to cross-continental rugged terrains and US-USSR hastily assembled Doastum’smilitias- secretly financed deployed in the surroundings ofKabul cityfter the Soviet’s departure (1989).
Meanwhile; in order to usurp solid political leverage un-sustainableparts of Asia, Africa and Europe, the Western networks of intelligence agenciesn close coordination with contracted mercenaries began heavy reliance on subversive operations that sporadic but heavy military confrontations into wide-spread bastions of seemingly perpetual religious, ethnic and political . Sure enough the US elite political “watch-dogs” got themselves heavily involved deep inside the murky bounds of distant horizons.
*AND WHILE; THE AMERICAN PUBLIC WAS STILL REELING DAZED UNDER THE THRILL OFAPEACEFUL NEW ERA,THE US ELITISTS WERE OBNOXIOUSLY ATTRIBUTING THE RAPIDLY RISING PROSPERITY TO CRUDE BUT “MIRACULOUS” REAGAN-BUSH ECONOMIC POLICIES. THEY NEVER PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGD THE TREMENDOUS LOSSES THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN HAD SUFFERED AS A RESULT OF THE FAILED USSR INVASION1979NEITHER THE GREAT WINDFALLS OFF THE SOVIET COLLAPSE WERE OFFICIALLY CONFIRMED: THE INTERNATIONAL DEMAND FOR AMERICAN CURRENCY AS THE ONLY RELIABLE MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE (EARLY 90’S) SOARED FROM AROUND 250 BILLION DOLLARS TO OVER A TRILLION BY THE END OF THAT DECADE; ADDITIONAL HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS WERE SAVED FROM MILITARY CUT BACKSAND MUCH MUCH MORE FROMMOST SIGNIFICANTLY THOUGH;THE SOVIET’S SWIFT DOWN FALL RELIEVED AMERICAN PUBLIC FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR OF IMMINENTLY POSSIBLE NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST THAT COULD HAVE HAD EASILY OCCURRED ANY TIME INSIDE THE US SOIL LL DUE TO IDEOLOGICALLY IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES AND FREQUENT HOT MILITARY STAND OFFS BETWEEN THE TWO ARROGANTLY POISED .
*Around mid 1990’s
And yet still; in spite of dramatic surge in cross-regional violent protests and anarchies; the US, as the self-appointed premier global power-broker, kept shunning timely civilized dialogue with the locally-based grass-rooted leaderships in order to help realize smooth socio-economic transitions into proper stability that by then, in mid 90’s, was steadily driftingand amalgamating on its own momentum towards a”dreadfully threatening realm of eventual invincibility”.
But then;genocides(Bosnia, Rwanda, etc;nto another posing moment of rare political watershed while the lingering moral weights of “the classic dilemma” was still looming: To either initiate a bold but certainly risky and abstract economic restructuring in favor of a much more robust global middle class majority or committhen barely active yet still expensively maintaine Western military contingents into full-fledgedengagements around volatile corners of the world.
Obviously; the foreign relation committees of the US Senate and Congress; the top so-calledhink-tanks” of the two party system; and failed to come up with any original civilized approach to properlystreamline the adverse ramificationsthat were tangled in fine of fractious international issues.
*Late 1990’s
The staunch political supporters of the crafty US Ruling elite and unwavering back up from the highly marginalized but yet still viable Neo-colonial Gurus in England promptly took up the momentous initiative to lay out their own unilateral war game plan under the “1992’s Project for New American Century”: An up-dated version of tight global military-economic control model that was widely practiced during the English turbulent olonial ra (0’s to 1950’s).
Consequently, thelobbying cadre, from a coalesced syndicate of special interests, kept urgent pleas for relics of once mighty but yet still devoted Islamic cultural vanguards: Allelaborately finaliztotal access into complex ofcommercial and strategic sites- the sites that historically had always remained politically off-limit and militarily untenable to the West, in spite of more than two centuries of a proximal military presence that wasnotoriously coupled with endemic “surgical incursions”.
As you clearly notice: The Western ruling cliques already strategicallyaligning their military in Middle East and Central Asia. The subsequent harmonized twin invasions had absolutely nothing to do with the events that presumably culminated into the terror of September 11.*
Bush “The Son”
and
The Ruling Body
George W. Bush’s hatred is a reflection off the US Ruling Body(Elite of the Mega-Corporations and the Super-Rich). His father, ex-President George H.W. with long history of assignments sensitive foreign posts which included working as the CIA’s top informant, was playing a significant role into media-controlled dissemination of highly distorted images of Islamic cultures.
Right after the Gulf War (February of 1991) gleefully threw in a party and celebrated like an ancient royalty in Islam Morida,Florida and with such a pomp and arrogance as if he just had accomplished the dream of his life the obliteration of all traces of the Islamic civilization: “Right !; a sure sign of megala-menia”. Ironically; Saddam’s regime was not only being ; as an instrument for suppression of aspirations, but also, he was effectively played out as a fall-guy under the general context of hegemonic posturing. As the consequence of such kinds of grotesque policies, the whole population of Iraq ofpsychological”war games”.
It is commonly understood that the Bushes are not very bright, especially on global political arena- (compare Nixon’s obsequious, but fore-sighted, diplomatic overtures to Mao Zedong, Feb 21 to 28, 1972); nevertheless, their gang of well-financed supporters resonat fine tunes with the seemingly detached, “yet all-present and all-ruling”, circles of the “historically old US establishment”. That is how w ableto attach as the pre-eminent figure incontemporary high tides of unfolding US geo-political schemes, especially since 1980’s.
Bush the Junior’s made possible byblessing of the good old Ruling Body and by playing into fears of American public in re-election campaign of 2004 on terrorism platform. His amazing election eve appearance on national TV November 7, 2000resembled a third world Western-supported dictatorial enactment than a resolution of the fraudulent final vote counts. While the campany of the most trusted Bush the s ex-Aids and ex-Generals, Mr. Bush the Junior’s political campaign workers were already chanting wild and loudly declaring unilateral promulgation- essentially silencing docile Vice-President Al Gore before the final accurate counts were even in.
Obviously, the comrades were assigned before the events of September 11, 2001 to set up the timely show-down nuts and bolts th fixation on phony of “new world order”.Indeed, a chance for a grand showcase of a true democracy was about to be marred into mockery of US presidential election laws: All in one quick rush to curry special favors with the architects and profiteers of another urgently-concocted war bonanza.
The promotion of this sort of absurd concept of democracy isactually a confused blend of over three centuries of explicit and vague rules and regulations that kept uniquely evolving early on during the passing decades of English (colonial) andUS (perious) periods (17 to early 20 centuries): While rapidly spreading through out North America, thregimentatlon ruthlessly absolute legal codes of conducts by the later generations of settlers and subsequent militant elements of the Union. As a matter of fact, for most parts, thspecial privileges vigilantly lopsided through out the spans of the two World Wars andsocially restive Cold War(19141992).
The vision upon which this empire runs its current international foreign affairs is still totally incompatible with the normal civilized notion of respect for human dignity. The pęriodicimmature political antics; the outbursts and then bizarre unleashing of “awe and shock” types of psychological horrors upon presumed weaker “civilian and military targets” across the globe, (Afghanistan and Iraq, etc), got its reasoning: It is just that the Ruling Body won’t run functional without absolute control of the . This matter of survival heavily weighs on its fragile shoulders-it must be alert to the max and count on good acting abilities of the criminals and immoral puppets and regular slave armies and professional mercenaries from around the planet.
* The Ruling Bodis truly secular inits essence,but itis badly convoluted onits varnishedrevealed iconic image. The make up More than %90 of the powerful ruling executives in mega-corporations are members of the exclusive super-rich club who share similar cultural profiles and selectively label themselves as Protestants and White (in solidarity with the Englishman’s past colonial glory).The militant backers of the Ruling Body form a very tiny minority block in comparison to the total US population; most of the sizable main body members of Evangelical Protestants (due to economic gains and global politics) pride themselves as being patriotic Anglo-Saxon and “white”; in reality though, %80-plus of this heavily indoctrinated bulk is a racially mix variety of early and later settlers of northern European stocks with various subdued aboriginal tribes from across North America. , overwhelming majority of the US-born citizens (Hispanics, and so-called “whites and blacks”) share strong native genes.
This cheaply-maintained hybrid of archaic and contemporary globalpolitical , at its current level of extreme exploitationwhich includes various forms of human labor, is essentially serving the vital economic interests of the US and its dangling European . Surely, it would slip into its natural obsolete fate if it is not proped by brute periodic military might; Mainly due to lack of any significant scientific, industrial and commercial output from more than 90 of the naturally rich but economicallydeprived nations
In summary: It is quite apparent that the real pressing issue of the post cold-war concerns with the absoluteeconomic domination of the whole world. The only way to achieve this fantastic dream is to gain total control of critical strategic sites in and around huge tracts of Muslim-populated territories under the bogus banner of “Secular Democracy” which has alreadymanifested itself as: blatantly rigged; fanatically dictated; and savagely enforced through NATO’s military codes.*