As the US hands over power to local forces in some parts of Afghanistan, Progressive Radio news host and author Stephen Lendman believes that, in reality, due to strategic reasons, there is no withdrawal plan from Afghanistan.
“Combat forces may come out – private security forces may come in and take their place,” he said. “America came to Afghanistan to stay, they are not leaving.”
“There is no withdrawal plan from Iraq or Afghanistan. There was no withdrawal plan from Japan, from Germany, from South Korea, from Italy” he added. “The only way a withdrawal would ever happen is if the strategic reasons change.”
Afghanistan is a very important strategic point in the region for the US, Lendman says.
“There is a lot of oil in the Caspian area,” he said, and America had chosen Afghanistan as a future “pipe line transit system.”
“Russia is competing with America, and America wants every leg up it can get,” he added. “But [Afghanistan] is also a land based aircraft carrier targeting Russia, targeting China.”
The half-brother and a key aide of the Afghan president were both killed within the last week, but Lendman believes there is more determination than symbolism here as the “Afghan resistance” would not stand for occupation.
“They’ll take any opportunity they can to target any official, at any level, at any time,” he said. “They never know when it may happen, but when it does, they want to take full advantage of it.”
Stephen Lendman recalled an earlier article he wrote about Afghanistan several years ago, entitled “The other lost war”.
“I mentioned that if Hamid Karzai, the president, gets out on the street with a small security detail – not practically the marine division that guards him – he would not last five minutes. The Taliban, the resistance in Afghanistan, want to liberate their country. That’s what they are fighting for.”