Qatar’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned that isolating the Taliban could lead to further instability and urged countries to engage with them to address security and socioeconomic concerns in Afghanistan. The U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state has emerged as a key interlocutor to the Taliban, having hosted the group’s political office since 2013. “If we are starting to put conditions and […]

An imaginative programme of integration is needed, involving above all lessons in English and job opportunities Nato’s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan has come to an ignominious end with thousands of people who worked with Western forces and other organisations still trapped in the country. Questions will be asked for some time as to why preparations for their evacuation were not […]

Billions of dollars of US materiel is now in the Taliban’s hands; but which leader will be taken to task for it, or for anything? “This is effing ridiculous,” we grumbled to each other as we eased our sedan onto the Autobahn. I was a newly minted 2nd lieutenant, accompanied by an enlisted squad leader, team leader, and rifleman from […]

CACI is a well-known company with a $907 million contract in Afghanistan — it also has undisclosed ties to think tanks opposed to withdrawal. Weapons firms and defense contractors consume over half of the Pentagon’s $740 billion budget and the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan poses a threat for their share-holders and executives. That concern was laid bare […]

The foreign policy elite are focused on defending their reputations and privileges, not in confronting failure in Afghanistan. When the Nazi Party consolidated power in Germany in 1933, they enshrined into their version of history the myth that the German Army had not lost in the Great War but had been “stabbed in the back” by cowardly civilian politicians, Jews, […]

The Americans, like the British and the Soviets before them, dug their own graveyard in Afghanistan. The Carthaginian general Hannibal, who came close to defeating the Roman Republic in the Second Punic War, committed suicide in 181 BC in exile as Roman soldiers closed in on his residence in the Bithynian village of Libyssa, now modern-day Turkey. It had been […]

Establishment journalists and politicians are despairingly asking: Why did we fail in our well-meaning efforts to help the Afghan people? What were our mistakes? But they ignore their first mistake: creating the Taliban. The USA’s attempts to dominate Afghanistan and its resources began 40 years ago when Jimmy Carter in one of his last acts as president approved a CIA […]

Lo llamaron “Tempestad de acero”, vigoroso apelativo para describir un operativo militar pretendidamente devastador contra los laboratorios de producción de heroína en manos de los talibanes. Fue en noviembre del 2017 y el Pentágono empleó los últimos adelantos tecnológicos para bombardear las factorías de droga afganas que procesan el opio. La operación fue presentada como un éxito en la lucha […]

L’Afghanistan tornato nelle mani dei talebani apre scenari inediti su cinque fronti cruciali per la sicurezza globale: la faida jihadista per il controllo di Kabul; il rafforzamento di Qatar, Pakistan e Turchia nel mondo musulmano; la necessità per l’America di Biden di riguadagnare in fretta prestigio ed autorità; l’opportunità per Cina e Russia di modificare a proprio favore gli equilibri […]

Was wiegt schwerer – ein amerikanischer Präsident, der die Beistandsklausel des Nato-Vertrags infrage stellt, oder ein amerikanischer Präsident, der die Verbündeten am Nasenring durch die afghanische Manege führt? Donald Trump oder Joe Biden: Welche Politik des America first erweist sich als unheilvoller für die Europäer? Das Ausmass des politischen Schadens, den Biden mit dem chaotischen, unilateral verfügten Abzug aus Afghanistan […]