The Post-Partisan Emporium

  9/9 and 9/11, 20 years later We may never know the full contours of the whole riddle inside an enigma when it comes to 9/11 and related issues    Massoud leaving Bazarak in the Panjshir after our interview in August 2001, roughly three weeks before his assassination. Photo: Pepe Escobar It’s impossible not to start with the latest tremor in a series of stunning geopolitical earthquakes.  Exactly 20 years after 9/11 and the subsequent onset of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), the Taliban will hold a ceremony in Kabul to celebrate their victory in that misguided Forever War. Four key exponents of Eurasia integration – China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan – as well as Turkey and Qatar, will be officially represented, witnessing the official return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. As blowbacks go, this one is nothing short of intergalactic. The plot thickens when we have Taliban spokesm

  Propaganda Today: How US created Taliban & al-Qaeda, and behind Afghanistan war profiteering Ben Norton · August 24, 2021 The Grayzone’s Ben Norton launches his show Propaganda Today discussing US war profiteering in Afghanistan and how the CIA gave birth to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Propaganda Today is a weekly show that Ben hosts at the independent video platform Rokfin . In his first stream, he talks about corporate war profiteering in Afghanistan, and debunks media myths claiming Washington supposedly “spent $2 trillion and got nothing for it.” In reality, 80 to 90% of US war spending in Afghanistan returned to the US economy through private for-profit US contractors. And the top five weapons-manufacturing military contractors received more than $2 trillion in US government funding during the war. In the rest of the video, Ben documents the history of US meddling in Afghanistan, going back to the 1970s, sh

The U.S. Government Lied For Two Decades About Afghanistan Using the same deceitful tactics they pioneered in Vietnam, U.S. political and military officials repeatedly misled the country about the prospects for success in Afghanistan. Glenn Greenwald 12 min ago 35 8 The Taliban give an exclusive interview to Al Jazeera after taking control of the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 15, 2021 (Al Jazeera/YouTube) “The Taliban regime is coming to an end,” announced President George W. Bush at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on December 12, 2001 — almost twenty years ago today. Five months later, Bush vowed : “In the United States of America, the terrorists have chosen a foe unlike they have faced before. . . . We will stay until the mission is done.” Four years after that, in August of 2006, Bush announced : “Al Qaeda and the Taliban lost a coveted base in Afghanistan and they know they will never reclaim it when democracy succeeds.  . . . The days of th

I recently worked in Kabul and weep for all my Afghan friends, who we’re abandoning to their deaths. Here’s why our mission failed 14 Aug, 2021 11:33 Get short URL A member of Afghan security forces looks at a damaged car at the site of yesterday's night-time car bomb blast in Kabul, Afghanistan August 4, 2021. ©  REUTERS/Stringer 53 Follow RT on Kevin Hurley is a former senior police officer and reservist army officer. He has completed two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan working on security sector reform. He now specialises in advising on policing and security development in fractured nations. Afghanistan’s falling apart again and the Taliban’s on the brink of victory, as I predicted. So, why did the 20-year US-led occupation fail? Because it refused to tackle the rampant corruption that pervades all echelons of power. Knowing that in less than three hours, you will be in Kabul, the most dangerous capital city in th

The Taliban go to Tianjin China and Russia will be key to solving an ancient geopolitical riddle: how to pacify the 'graveyard of empires' by Pepe Escobar July 29, 2021 Nine Taliban representatives meet with Chinese officials in Tianjin. In the center are Taliban co-founder Mullah Baladar and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry So this is the way the Forever War in Afghanistan ends – if one could call it an ending. Rather, it’s an American repositioning. Regardless, after two decades of death and destruction and untold trillions of dollars, we’re faced not with a bang – and not with a whimper, either – but rather with a pic of the Taliban in Tianjin, a nine-man delegation led by top political commissioner Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, solemnly posing side by side with Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Lateral echoes of another Forever War – in Iraq