Tag: Overseas Contingency Operations

Permanent Bases U.S. Objective in Afghanistan?

Rahimullah Yusufzai is a Senior Analyst with the Pakistani TV channel Geo TV, and the Resident Editor of The News International in Peshawar, an English newspaper from Pakistan. He’s worked as a correspondent for Time Magazine, BBC World Service, BBC Pashto, BBC Urdu, Geo TV, and ABC News. Mr. Yusufzai has interviewed Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and a range of other militants across the tribal areas of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Here Yusufzai talks from Peshawar, Pakistan with Real News Network’s Paul Jay about the real U.S. objectives in Afghanistan, and notes that the U.S. now has more than 100,000 troops in AfPak fighting at the most a couple of hundred Al Qaeda members, with only 50 of them in Afghanistan.



Real News Network – January 10, 2011

Permanent Bases Objective in Afghan War?

Sen. Lindsay Graham may have revealed the real objective

with an open call for permanent bases in Afghanistan


…transcript follows…

Afghanistan: “These people just want to be left alone”

Crossposted from Antemedius

The Guardian’s Sean Smith spent a month embedded with the US Army’s 501st Parachute Regiment in June this year, and reports now that with inadequate vehicles, relations with Afghan security forces at a standstill and the constant threat of IEDs, US Troops in the country are losing heart for a fight they feel their presence is only prolonging, while many Afghanis say that the presence of the troops is causing problems for them because that is what is attracting the Taliban.



Real News Network – November 9, 2009

‘These people just want to be left alone’

In Afghanistan the US soldiers are losing heart for a fight they feel their presence is only prolonging

Fifty Questions on 9/11, by Pepe Escobar


It’s September 11 all over again – eight years on. The George W Bush administration is out. The “global war on terror” is still on, renamed “overseas contingency operations” by the Barack Obama administration. Obama’s “new strategy” – a war escalation – is in play in AfPak. Osama bin Laden may be dead or not. “Al-Qaeda” remains a catch-all ghost entity. September 11 – the neo-cons’ “new Pearl Harbor” – remains the darkest jigsaw puzzle of the young 21st century.

It’s useless to expect US corporate media and the ruling elites’ political operatives to call for a true, in-depth investigation into the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Whitewash has been the norm. But even establishment highlight Dr Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has admitted to the US Senate that the post-9/11 “war on terror” is a “mythical historical narrative”.

The following questions, some multi-part – and most totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission – are just the tip of the immense 9/11 iceberg. A hat tip goes to the indefatigable work of 911truth.org; whatreallyhappened.com; architects and engineers for 9/11 truth; the Italian documentary Zero: an investigation into 9/11; and Asia Times Online readers’ e-mails.

None of these questions has been convincingly answered – according to the official narrative. It’s up to US civil society to keep up the pressure. Eight years after the fact, one fundamental conclusion is imperative. The official narrative edifice of 9/11 is simply not acceptable.

Fifty questions

Read the whole thing here…