Reading “In the Shadows of the American Century” is a bit of an up and down ride. The best part of the book for personal interest concerning the author is the Introduction. The author, Alfred McCoy, discusses his personal situation in relation to his family and the environment in which he was raised and the family friends whose lives ended […]

On Monday afternoon, US President Joe Biden delivered a nationally televised address in response to the collapse of the US-backed puppet government in Afghanistan. The scale and historical impact of the catastrophe suffered by American imperialism in Afghanistan, which in many respects exceeds even its defeat in the Vietnam War, found expression in the speech, perhaps the bleakest address by […]

“You’re all going to die,” the diminutive, senior U.S. intelligence official observed in matter-of-fact fashion to her stunned Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) hosts. Her rather blunt appraisal was uncharacteristic of the engagement to which the senior Pakistani officials had grown accustomed and cut to the chase: the consequences of decades of Pakistan’s support to the Taliban, violent Kashmiri liberation groups, […]

Tehran’s policy toward the Afghan Taliban has created new clashes within Iranian government circles. These clashes recently escalated as influential hard-line media and associates of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made public efforts to portray the Taliban in a positive light.

“This marks the end of a historic chapter — an intense deployment that has challenged and shaped us,” wrote German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer on June 29. The occasion was the homecoming of the last German troops deployed in Afghanistan. Over the past 20 years, around 150,000 German troops served in these troubled lands, making Germany the second-largest contributor to […]

One of the doctrinal principles behind U.S. corporate-imperial news coverage and commentary and mainstream US politics is that the United States is a fundamentally benevolent force for good facing difficulties created by evil others and challenging situations not of Washington’s own making. Debate is permissible on immediate strategy and tactics but is not allowed on these core American Exceptionalist positions. […]

The victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan is looking unstoppable as they capture the big provincial cities of Kandahar, Herat and Ghazni without meeting effective resistance from Afghan government forces. Afghan soldiers and security forces are fleeing, surrendering or changing sides as they see no point in dying for a lost cause. The speed of the Taliban success has caught […]

President Biden put a popular flag-waving wrapping on America’s forced withdrawal from Afghanistan in his 4 PM speech on Monday. It was as if all this was following Biden’s own intentions, not a demonstration of the totally incompetent assurances by the CIA and State Department as recently as last Friday that the Taliban was over a month away from being […]

In a bid to reassure the nation, the Taliban on Monday called on all government employees, including women, to return to work. The deputy head of the Taliban’s political office in Qatar Abdul Salam Hanafi stressed that diplomatic missions, and military and civilian government employees can work alongside the Taliban without any concerns and that no one’s rights will be […]

The Taliban’s real test begins now as they look to meet the people’s expectations and serve them by resolving problems, a senior official from the group said as the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Reuters reported. In a video released by Taliban on Monday (August 16), Mullah Baradar Akhund, deputy of the Taliban, said it was now time to provide for […]