India, From Non-Aligned to Align; Modi’s Aligned with Hostile Nations, change in Taliban is Encouraging Sign, But Change in India is Depressing; Is India Going in the Undemocratic Direction?

India, From Non-Aligned to Align; Modi’s Aligned with Hostile Nations, change in Taliban is Encouraging Sign, But Change in India is Depressing; Is India Going in the Undemocratic Direction?

Mujeeb Khan

 

President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Vice President Kamala Harris and Prime Minister Narendra Modi

 

The cruelty of the Indian Army on Kashmiri women

 

   Apparently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with first, Vice President Kamala Harris and then President Joe Biden in White House was on the future of democracy and human rights in India. Before attending the Gang Four conference at the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris had met Prime Minister Modi, this was her first meeting with the Prime Minister. The Vice President’s family is from Indian Tamil Nadu. Therefore, Vice President Kamala was aware of the way the people of Tamil Nadu have faced the oppression and violence of the Indian Army, and Vice President Kamala sees Kashmiris in this perspective. Human rights are a cornerstone in President Biden’s foreign policy. Among the conference participants, Prime Minister Modi was the only leader of a major democracy in the world whose government had a poor human rights record. No one at the conference had spoken to Prime Minister Modi about the situation in India, but the host of the conference had given a lecture to Prime Minister on the future of democracy in India in a private meeting. The Prime Minister was apprised of the world’s concern over the emergence of Hindu extremism in India as Taliban. Progressive democrats also have reservations about making India a regressive Hindu state. Which is contrary to democratic principles. Extremist Hindus have taken away this freedom of Hindu women who cannot marry a Muslim in love. The world is urging the Taliban in Afghanistan to give women rights, and Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu extremist party has abolished the right of a Hindu woman to marry for love outside the Hindu religion. This is the Hindu Taliban’s ban on the freedom of Hindu women. India has gone in the direction of religious extremism from which Pakistan has paid a heavy price. Prime Minister Modi now realizes that he is surrounded by religious extremists, and he can’t retreat from the decisions he has made so far. The Prime Minister even cannot change his decisions regarding occupied Kashmir, and talks with Pakistan will not possible, if he tries, Hindu extremists will sabotage it.

  Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani of the Janata Party were supporters of Hinduism, but they were not Hindu extremists, they had reformed themselves. That is why they kept Hindutva extremism away from their decisions. They believed that Hindu extremism would become a threat to India’s secular democracy and the religious freedom of minorities. And they wanted to maintain India’s secular democratic status quo. Prime Minister Modi will be seen as a failed political leader in the history of India. Prime Minister Modi was in an awkward position in front of President Biden, prior to the US presidential election, Prime Minister Modi had endorsed President Trump at a gathering of Indians in Texas and Gujarat and chanted “Trump four more years,” President Trump was also on stage with him. This gives an idea of the capacity of political judgment in Narendra Modi. In the White House, the vice president and the president shook his conscience about what he was doing with democracy and freedom in India. India has also overtaken China in human rights violations. In his nearly 30-minute address to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Modi described only the virtues of democracy and freedom in India. On Afghanistan, Prime Minister Modi said, “Afghan soil should not be used for terrorism.” Prime Minister expressed his concern to President Biden about the Taliban government in Kabul. The United States is concerned about China’s growing power. India was asked to join the alliance against China with the United States, Japan, and Australia. The Pacific is called Indo-Pacific so that India can compete with China from the heights of the Himalayas and the depths of the Pacific waters.

  How reprehensible it is that India has left the interests of small countries in its region and gone to the Pacific to fight China for the interest of big countries. SAARC was an organization of South Asian countries. The Modi government has dismantled it. The Taliban have changed. They have ended a 20-year war with the United States, Taliban have signed a peace agreement with the United States. The agreement states that it will not allow the use of Afghan territory to attack any country. This is what the Taliban have said to Russia and China, but unaware of India’s Prime Minister Modi has said that Afghan soil should not be used for terrorism. The Indian government will now stick to it, and they will not go beyond that. Similarly, the Indian government has been adamant about Pakistan for twenty years that “there are terrorist camps in Pakistan.” But terrorists carry out attacks in Pakistan. The Indian government has not yet moved beyond that allegation. Pakistan has brought the Taliban on the path to peace, And the Taliban are now talking about good relations with the United States. But these Indian Hindu extremists are so tough cookies that they do not want to live in peace with Muslims in India, nor do they want good relations with Pakistan.

  Prime Minister Narendra Modi says to his people, “I went to China, I went to Russia. I went to Arab countries, I went to the Gulf states, I told them all, who should we talk to in Pakistan, talk to the army, talk to the ISI, talk to which leader, everyone agreed with us. In the Cold War only Soviet Union was with us,” said Modi, “and everyone was with Pakistan. Today only China is with Pakistan, and everyone is with us.” Prime Minister Modi is misrepresenting, he is a typical politician and a master of misleading the world. Today’s world politics is based on lies, deception, misrepresentation, and under Modi’s leadership, India has fit into it. That is why the world is with India. India abandoned its non-alignment role and become an ally of the war powers.

  Prime Minister Modi has also lied about who talk to in Pakistan. The fact is that General Zia-ul-Haqq called Indira Gandhi elder sister. General Zia also visited Delhi. General Pervez Musharraf did not go to Delhi to hoist Pakistan’s flag, he went to make a peace agreement with India, but at the last minute, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee changed his mind, as extremist Hindus had threatened Prime Minister Vajpayee to strike a deal with Pakistan. Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had given India as the Most Favored Nation in trade with India before the peace talks. A woman prime minister of Pakistan, two army generals had tried to reach an agreement with India, Zardari-Gilani government had opened Pakistan’s borders with India at a time when bomb blasts were taking place in Pakistan. The roads were red with blood that there might be a peace deal with India. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif bowed to Indian leaders to reach a peace deal with India. Pakistan’s boys and girls had tried acting in Indian films that perhaps India Has peace accords with Pakistan. Imran Khan in his first address after becoming the Prime Minister had offered talks to Prime Minister Modi. Tensions between the two countries are not in anyone’s interest. Let, work together to lift the people of this region out of poverty. But in front of the leaders of India, it is like hitting your head with the wall- India’s leaders are chickens. They are afraid of extremists, and they do not want to be an example of Gandhi by compromising with Pakistan.     

                  

        

 

Half Asia Prosperous and in Half Asia Destruction of Human Development, People of East Asia Have to Defend Common Prosperity, Military Circus is Coming in Your Region, Say Strongly No Jingoism Here

 

 

Half Asia Prosperous and in Half Asia Destruction of Human Development, People of East Asia Have to Defend Common Prosperity, Military Circus is Coming in Your Region, Say Strongly No Jingoism Here

Mujeeb Khan

 

Syria, ten years war

Gaza under Israel's aggression

Human destruction in Libya

 

Yemen, war of human destruction

 “Conflicts will now be resolved through diplomacy, not war,” President Joe Biden told the annual session of the UN General Assembly, President Biden has called for alliance and unity on global issues. The same General Assembly was addressed by President George W. Bush 20 years ago after 9/11, at that time, the world was united behind the United States. The world would not have seen such a large alliance against terrorism. In his address, President Bush declared a global war on terror, he called Iran, North Korea, and Iraq the “axis of evil” and involved them in the war on terror. There is a difference between the 46 and 43^rd presidents but there were 44 and 45^th presidents, after 20 years of war experience, the United States has had to acknowledge the importance of resolving differences and disputes through diplomacy. The world can also say that the Taliban have liberated the United States from unending wars. And President Biden has told the world that there will be no more war. But President Biden has repeatedly used the words alliance and allies, there is also talk of forming an alliance against China. While weapons worth $400 million are being sold to Taiwan. President Biden has suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but now it has been restored, and $550 million worth of weapons will be sold to Saudi Arabia. Weapons will be sold to the autocratic government of Egypt. Six thousand US troops have died in Iraq in a war on destroying weapons, and now new weapons are being sold to Iraq. The United States has done nothing to benefit the people of the region. The region’s 350 million people want a complete ban on arms sales in the region, like the arms embargo imposed on Germany and Japan after World War II. Today, Germany and Japan are industrial powers and far superior to military powers. Military powers have become accustomed to wars. The United States has set a world record for 20 years of war, and America’s wars are not over, war on terror will probably never end. The wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Mali, Chad, and Somalia are not over. President Trump did not wage a new war, he was not interested in the wars of the previous administrations. The Trump administration has begun talks with the Taliban to end the Afghan war. After nearly 20 months of negotiations, there was an agreement to end the 20-year war. President Trump and the Taliban signed the agreement, President Biden was committed to implementing the agreement and ended the Afghan war. While other wars are in silent mode. It will be up to the 47^th president what he does with these wars. Regional peace and stability can save the world from these wars. Regional instability and chaos are in the interest of military powers.

  If after 9/11 cool head was used, there would not be such a catastrophic human catastrophe. Three million people do not die, two million people are not homeless. The lives of thousands of families are not deserted, it is not seen as revenge for the death of three thousand people. In the Bush administration, irrational heads were planning a long war. Bush administration had the support of the world, never in the history of the United States has there been an occasion when the whole world was cooperating with the United States. Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi has handed over all his deadly weapons to President Bush, and he sided with the United States in the war on terror. Syrian President Basher al-Assad was also cooperating with the United States. These leaders have been fighting Islamic extremists for almost sixty years. President Bush has called on all nations to share intelligence with the United States on terrorists. The world has sincerely share sensitive intelligence with the Bush administration. Pakistan was also among these countries. Libya, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, almost every country shared intelligence with the Bush administration. The intelligence that India provided was about Pakistan’s army and ISI. Because terrorism and Islamic extremism were rampant in South and West Asia. Therefore, intelligence was crucial to counter-terrorism and extremism in South and West Asia. But what did the Bush administration do to intelligence to the advantage of the United States?

  In 20 years, the United States has not been able to eradicate terrorism. Twenty years ago, there were not as many terrorist and extremist groups in this part of the world as were seen because of shares intelligence. Shares intelligence was abused by the Bush administration. The intelligence that Pakistan provided to the Bush administration about terrorists was leaked to India. India used these terrorists against Pakistan to its advantage. The bombing had increased in Baluchistan, extremists become full-time terrorists, new terrorist groups were emerging in Punjab. Pakhtunkhwa was in a tsunami of horrible terrorism. Bombs were exploding at the army and ISI headquarters. The US focus shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan. Whenever evidence of India’s involvement in Pakistan was given to the United States, it was not new to the United States. It was just leaked.

  The intelligence that Libya and Syria shared with the United States was leaked to Israel. Israel used their shared intelligence against them. In Benghazi, opponents of President Gaddafi were united by Bernard-Henry Levy, and then they announced the formation of a new government. Bernard Levy took them to Paris, where they met with President Nicolas Sarkozy, Bernard Levy introduced them to President Sarkozy, and he right away recognized their government as the legitimate government of Libya. The French pseudo-philosopher Bernard Levy becomes most powerful than the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Britain, that on Levy’s recommendation President Sarkozy recognized Gaddafi’s opposition as the legitimate government of Libya. Under what law were Gaddafi’s opponents recognized as the legitimate government of Libya? Nicolas Sarkozy has been convicted by a French court in a corruption case. But neither the United States nor the United Kingdom was sanctioned for violating international law. In war and politics, violation of law is corruption.

  In Egypt, President Husseini Mubarak shared intelligence with the United States. It was used to oust him from power. Israel shared intelligence with the United States about a democratically elected government in Egypt. And on Israel’s intelligence, it overthrew the democratic government in Egypt and restored military dictatorship. The United States has quietly accepted military dictatorship in Egypt under the pretext of terrorism. After bringing the military dictator to power in Egypt, the intelligence of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia was to remove the dictator from power in Syria. The war to remove the dictator from power was terrorism. Was America’s War on Terror Really a War on Terror? Who are they making fools?

  The so-called war on terror is a war to destroy human development. Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Mali, Chad, Afghanistan are clear proofs of this. These countries are 60, 70 years behind in education, science, and technology.

 

      

            

The Leader of the Free World, President George W. Bush on 9/11 Twenty Years Ago and Twenty Years After in His Own Words, “We are taking the fight to the terrorists abroad or we deal with it comes to the US” June 28, 2005. “There is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as much of a threat to the United States as terrorism originating abroad.” Sept 11, 2021

The Leader of the Free World, President George W. Bush on 9/11 Twenty Years Ago and Twenty Years After in His Own Words, “We are taking the fight to the terrorists abroad or we deal with it comes to the US” June 28, 2005. “There is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as much of a threat to the United States as terrorism originating abroad.” Sept 11, 2021

Successful leaders are those who are far-sighted and make decisions for ten, fifteen, and twenty years thinking whether their effects will be good or bad for the nation and the world. But American leaders make short-sighted decisions with the term of their power in the mind.

Mujeeb Khan

 

Media is Pro Establishment, Pro Deep State, Pro-Military Industrial Complex. But this is not people’s interest. Many facts about 9/11 is covered up. There were lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Thousands were killed because of the administration’s lies, but no one was held accountable. Bin Laden was called the killer. But bin Laden’s video messages to al-Qaeda operatives were broadcast on a breaking news in the same media, and al-Qaeda was kept alive. The administration knew of bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. But in media reports say bin Laden was in Pakistan and the government did not tell the United States. But no one in the media has ever asked why the Clinton administration did not arrest bin Laden when the Sudanese government informed him about bin Laden’s presence in Sudan. Why did the Clinton administration ask the Sudanese government to expel him from Sudan? Why was bin Laden was not asked to be detained in Sudan?

 

World Trade Center, attacked on 9/11

 “The United States is safer today than it was 20 years ago,” said Condoleezza Rice, architect of the Afghan war and mastermind of the Iraq war, America’s first female national security adviser. On the occasion, President George W. Bush warned that “there is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as a threat to the United States as terrorism originating from abroad.” President Bush called on Americans to confront the growing internal extremism. President made the remarks on riots of January 6 when protesters stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, DC., killing five people, among those gathered in Washington, on January 6 was many former U.S. soldiers who were sent by President Bush to fight terrorists in Afghanistan and then Iraq. After 9/11, President Bush said that “we are taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us.” “We are fighting them there, so we do not have to fight them here.” Now, 20 years later, extremism will be fought here and terrorism there. Since January 6, the FBI has been searching for extremists in 50 US states, and since 9/11, the CIA has been pursuing terrorists in fifty countries. Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, says the United States has not been attacked in 20 years, and there is peace in America. In which the United States she lives. What was not the attack on the Capitol Building on January 6.? America’s cities were on fire last summer. Businesses were being attacked. Police stations were being set on fire; will it be called peace? Such advisers have given America the failures of the wars and war on terror.

  9/11 has been used by US leaders to promote wars in the world, destroy world peace, and destabilize countries and regions. Today Lawlessness is the law of the world. Leaders in America do not make decisions based on what their outcome will be in 15-20 years. They do not think so. They come for four or eight years, and the thinking of their decisions is limited to that. President Reagan’s only goal in Afghanistan was to bring down the Soviet empire near its borders, for this one purpose. President Reagan made 30,000 young people from Islamic countries terrorists in the name of jihad. President Reagan never considered the far-reaching dangers of his policy. The only thing President Reagan had in mind was three or four more years in power- if the Soviet Empire fell it would be his legacy, Jihadist terrorism will not be his problem. George H. Bush was vice president in Reagan’s administration. George H. Bush did not consider Afghanistan his responsibility after becoming the 41^st President of the United States. Afghanistan was forgotten. Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. President George H. Bush did not even thank those who fought and gave their lives to overthrow the Soviet Empire. The first US war since the fall of the Soviet Empire was against Panama. The second war was against Iraq. This war would never have happened if President Bush had a firm belief in peace and would have given a sincere answer to President Saddam Hussein, because he had asked President Bush before sending troops to Kuwait that how the United States would react. President Bush’s response was, “we will not interfere in the internal affairs of the Arab world.” The president’s response was dishonest and behind that was a gotcha. These leaders were planning new wars, after the end of the Cold War, and their intention was to continue the wars for fifty years somehow.

  The United States has imposed the most brutal sanctions on Iraq in human history. 500,000 innocent babies died in a few days after birth because of steep sanctions. Thousands of Iraqis died because of a lack of medical treatment in hospitals. In 1998, President Clinton and the Tony Blair administration bombed Iraq for three weeks after President Saddam Hussein barred UN inspectors from entering Iraq. It was the month of Ramadan when Iraqis were going to the mosque for Fajr prayers in the early morning, sirens would sound and American and British planes would enter Baghdad, and the bombing would start. It was evening in the United States, CNN showed the bombing live in Baghdad every day. The aim was to create psychological hatred and anger against the United States among the people of the Arab Islamic countries so that someone in the Arab Islamic countries would take extreme action against the United States and the United States would occupy the Middle East in response.

  President Ronald Reagan handed over Afghanistan’s mass to 41^st President George H. Bush, but the incoming president has shied away from US responsibility in Afghanistan, the Afghans who fought the Soviets, they destroyed their lives and home, sacrifices were made, 41^st President Bush was not ready to help rebuild homes and their lives. President Bush, perhaps not looking a peaceful Afghanistan in America’s interest. In the center of the Middle East, President Bush has opened a new front for the world, the war in Iraq. He had no idea what the long-term effects of the Iraq war would be for the world and for Afghanistan. President George H. Bush had left Iraq where people did not live or die. 42^nd President Bill Clinton was asked to keep Saddam Hussein inbox in Iraq, economic sanctions will remain in place, and continue to bomb Iraq from time to time. Anyone in the Middle East who saw the plight of the people in Iraq began to hate the United States. President Clinton also paid no attention to Afghanistan. The first attack on the World Trade Center took place in 1993, in which some people died. The tower’s structure was damaged. Where was this attack planned? Nobody knew that. Then there was the bombing of US military barracks in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, in which many American soldiers were killed. Bin Laden was blamed for the attack. In 1998, US embassies and naval ships were attacked in Kenya and Tanzania, killing several sailors. But despite this, nothing was done to capture bin, Laden. However, the Sudanese government informed the Clinton administration about bin Laden’s presence in Sudan, but the Sudanese government was told to expel bin Laden from Sudan. Neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration did anything to capture bin Laden the Bush administration has been in power for six months. President Bush knew bin Laden's whereabouts, he was in Afghanistan.       

   

       

Twenty Years of the Afghan War: But Not 20 Years, 13 of the 20 Years the Administration Gave to the Iraq War, Five of The Remaining Seven Years Were Spent on the Syrian War, Leaving the Afghan War Barely Two Years, The Taliban had Focused on the War for 20 Years

Twenty Years of the Afghan War: But Not 20 Years, 13 of the 20 Years the Administration Gave to the Iraq War, Five of The Remaining Seven Years Were Spent on the Syrian War, Leaving the Afghan War Barely Two Years, The Taliban had Focused on the War for 20 Years

Mujeeb Khan

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar [in center] will be a deputy head of the new Taliban government

                 

Afghan women protest, demanding equal rights under the Taliban government

 

  The Taliban are now in power. The Emirate Islami Afghanistan is in the neighborhood of Iran. In almost 58 years, the effects of the Islamic Revolution in Iran has not been seen anywhere in the region. Iran’s Islamic Revolution was only within its borders. But there was a negative propaganda campaign about the Islamic Revolution of Iran in the western media was used to intimidate the Arab rulers, even though jihad was being waged against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan at that time. The Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Islamic Jihad in Afghanistan were given special coverage in the media. It was called the Islamic Revivalism from Morocco to Indonesia. In Islamic countries, the spirit of jihad was being instilled in the youth, but despite all this, Iran did not exploit the situation to its advantage. They kept the Islamic Revolution within their borders. If Iran supports Hamas and Hezbollah, what is wrong with that? It is the Israeli government’s definition to support those who fight for freedom and rights as terrorists. The United States also falls into this definition, which is supporting such elements in almost every region of the world. The Islamic government of Iran had very good relations with Christian countries in Latin America and Africa. In the most difficult times in Venezuela and Cuba, Iran helped these countries, and in the same way, Iran helped Hamas and Hezbollah.

  The United States did not take the responsibility for the spread of jihadists in the world, but the credit for bringing down the Soviet Empire through jihadists was taken by the United States. And when the Soviet Empire fell, the United States left behind Afghans, Arab jihadists, weapons, landmines. Many of them were Arabs, some jihadists joined the battle of Bosnia, some jihadists had joined Hamas in the fight against Israel in Palestine. Some jihadists had gone to jihad against India in occupied Kashmir. The Bush administration opened the Iraqi front for jihadists believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. They joined the Iraqis in liberating Iraq from US military occupation. Interestingly, the jihadists who were fighting the US forces in Iraq were said to be aided by Iran. The jihadists who were fighting against Israel in occupied Palestine were blamed by Saddam Hussein for paying them. the Afghan Taliban were only fighting foreign forces on their borders, or the Afghan Taliban were in Guantanamo Bay and in the Bagram camp. The Afghan Taliban did not attack the interests of NATO countries around the world. Then how was this war with the Taliban for 20 years? The Bush administration said the reason for invading Afghanistan was that Mullah Omar had refused to hand over Osama bin Laden to the United States, and that reason was a lie. The truth was that Mullah Omar, through the diplomatic efforts of Pakistan and some other Islamic countries, was ready to hand over bin Laden to a third country, but instead of responding peacefully to the diplomatic efforts of these countries, the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan with full force. But just three years ago, when the Sudanese government informed the Clinton administration of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Sudan, instead of arresting him, the Sudanese government was asked to expel bin Laden from Sudan. The world is now being affected by these decisions of the administration.

  How will the 20-years US war in Afghanistan be viewed in history? Twenty years later, the US-designated democratic political government in Kabul was overthrown and the Taliban thwarted the US on the military front. Those who have been in government in Kabul for almost 20 years has been metropolitan urbanites. And those who had a war with the United States were rural backward and extremely rigid religious. In The 1980s, the CIA’s Leaflet drove them out of the countryside and into the cities to wage urban warfare against Soviet forces, and they were told the Communists were destroying their mosques and religion in Afghanistan. The Metropolitan urbanites did not fight the Soviet forces and left Afghanistan. This time, The United States formed an alliance with the Metropolitan urbanites against the Taliban of rural areas and the United States lost the war with the Taliban, and the metropolitan urbanites left to the United States. And they did not fight the Taliban.

  The problem in Afghanistan now is peace and stability. When there is peace and stability in Afghanistan, then there will be an opportunity for economic activity to move forward. The Taliban have begun a process of reconciliation and political action, they have given up the adventure of suffocating Afghans. Afghan society, which has been divided for years, now needs to be united. The solution to political differences is in the political process. When everyone comes into a political process, the process of change will also move forward. People will continue to reject reactionary hardline religious elements. Modernist, liberal, progressive ideas will come forward. In the last 20 years, the Taliban movement has changed to include some modernists. Who supports women’s rights, supports freedom of the press and the media, respects the beliefs of different religious sects.?

  It has taken the Taliban twenty years to reach this point, but they did not give up. But in twenty years in Kabul what were called political governments, were incapable of advancing and stabilizing the political process. The result was that the whole so-called political system disappeared like sand in a whirlwind. Afghan tribal society was a laboratory for a democratic political system, this experiment has failed, but not completely. This time the Taliban have come up with new political thinking. Non-Taliban Afghan who really believe in political freedom, they should drop their weapons and entered the political process. And mobilize public politics. In twenty years or maybe early, they can defeat the Taliban.     

 

         

Peace in Afghanistan Is in The Peace Process and Stability in Afghanistan Is in The Politics of Give and Take

  

Peace in Afghanistan Is in The Peace Process and Stability in Afghanistan Is in The Politics of Giving and Take

Mujeeb Khan 

 

City of  Kandahar

  On the morning of August 31, the people in America was feeling light, the burden of Hindu Kush was lifted from their shoulders. The black smoke washed away from the sky. The crystal-clear blue sky shone with the bright rays of the sun. In Afghanistan, on the morning of August 31, when people came out of their homes, they did not see military trucks, military vehicles, camouflage uniforms, beautiful morning, quiet streets. There was no black smoke in the air, the roads were not red. There were no explosions from either side. For 20 years, or even forty years, the Afghan people have become accustomed to living in these conditions. They did not understand that Afghanistan was in the same world, or they have entered a new world. However, they were happy to see that Afghanistan had been liberated and that the Taliban had liberated the United States from war. It was Afghanistan that liberated the United States from the fear of communism.

  George W. Bush’s national security team and so-called the New Conservatives were intoxicated on war long before 9/11. The war in Afghanistan was such that in the United States, such people are often punished, and twenty years later it is said that he was innocent. The prosecutor hid some facts from the court. The United States had a similar case about Afghanistan. Every US administration has told the world that the 9/11 attacks on the United States came from Afghanistan, this is not true, the planes that attacked the United States did not come from Afghanistan. These were American planes that flew from American airports. Then the impression is given that the United States was attacked from Afghanistan? The root cause of the war in Afghanistan was wrong. President George W. Bush’s national security team was the most incompetent people. They ignored the facts about Afghanistan and pushed the United States into the forever Afghan war. These Afghans were Mujahideen in the 1980s and then in the 1990s, they become Taliban. They defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. This training was given to them by the CIA on how to fight superpowers in the modern world. History has also shown that all the powers that came to Afghanistan were defeated, all these facts were in front of President George W. Bush, and above all, those who were trained by the CIA should not have fought. That was the Bush administration’s deadliest mistake.

  President George H. Bush called Panama’s President Manuel Noriega a threat to US national security. General Noriega become a threat to US national security after the end of the Cold War. But in the Cold War, General Noriega was an asset to US national security. When in 1970s George H. Bush was director of the CIA, General Noriega played a key role in the right-wing and left-wing battles with the CIA in Latin America. General Noriega helped the United States to crush freedom and democracy movements throughout Latin America. Money laundering was carried out by General Noriega, and it was used to finance right-wing battles, they were given weapons. That is, General Manuel Noriega did all the dirty laundry for the United States for almost two decades. After the end of the Cold War, the battles of the right and the left also ended. The left was coming to power everywhere. Political changes were taking place in Latin America, seeing these political changes, General Noriega also began to change. President George H. Bush did with General Noriega what the Mafia does with its Renegade.

  General Manuel Noriega Knew many of the CIA’s secrets about Latin America, so he was a threat to America’s national security. But the CIA trained religious fanatics Afghan and Arab jihadists in Afghanistan to wage a jihad against the Soviet Union. President George H. Bush turned his back on them. There were about 40,000 jihadists. But President Bush considered General Noriega a greater threat than 40,000 Afghan jihadists.

  The Kremlin’s concern about peace in Afghanistan when Soviet troops were leaving Afghanistan 32 years ago, and now 32 years later today peace in Afghanistan is still a big question for everyone on the withdrawal of US troops. These excerpts are from the Soviet interpreter Pavel Palazchenko’s Memoir “My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze”.

  “As we were flying from China to Pakistan, the last units of the Soviet army were leaving Afghanistan. Although I had never been to Kabul with Shevardnadze, I knew what it had cost him to make that happen. The question that was then being debated everywhere, by experts and non-experts alike, was whether the government of Najibullah would survive the withdrawal.

  The international press was full of predictions of the impending final assault of the mujaheddin in Kabul, the fall of the regime, and a subsequent bloodbath. This was also the conventional wisdom in the Soviet foreign ministry, particularly in departments not directly concerned with Afghanistan. The experts on the Afghanistan desk were more prudent. Some went openly against the current and predicted that Najibullah’s regime would survive, but they were a minority.

  Shevardnadze did not make any predictions in my presence, but I felt he did not share the most pessimistic assessment. I once talked to him about the phrase “self-fulfilling prophecy,” which is difficult to translate into Russian and had to be explained. That was something that could happen in Afghanistan, I said. He answered to the effect that the strength of the Najibullah regime should not be underestimated.

  This, I thought, was the message he was taking to Islamabad, but the Pakistanis were not receptive to it. From the outset of Shevardnadze’s talks in the foreign ministry, they were for granted the early defeat of Najibullah. They said they were looking forward to a rapid improvement in relations with the Soviet Union now that the Afghan problem was almost behind us. Once the current regime was gone, they suggested, a political solution would be easy to achieve, and they were ready to cooperate. Shevardnadze’s attempt to persuade Foreign Minister Yakub Khan that Najibullah was an indigenous and viable force that at least had to be reckoned with in a political solution was ignored. He just couldn’t get through.

  A meeting was scheduled with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and Shevardnadze believed it was his last chance to explore possible political approaches seriously. He had some messages from Kabul to pass on to her. Part of the meeting he expected to be one-on-one, as is usual during such visits, but when we came to the parliament building, where the prime minister had her office, the events proceeded according to a different scenario.

  We were kept waiting for about ten minutes in one of the many halls of the building. As we waited, through an open door I saw Bhutto talking with someone. I could not hear what she was saying, but she seemed concerned. She was dressed in a red native outfit, her head covered with a shawl, and Shevardnadze, who did not recognize her, later said she might be taken for a young secretary. Finally, we were invited to join Bhutto and led into her office.

  But Bhutto’s private talk with Shevardnadze turned out to be a short. A few minutes later the door of the office opened, armchairs were brought in, and we were joined by Yakub Khan and two or three other officials. Bhutto smiled apologetically. She seemed to be encircled by people who, though not only hostile, owed her no allegiance. The discussion did not add anything to what we had gone through before, and the overall feeling was eerie and frustrating.

 We made one final attempt to get through to Bhutto. At Shevardnadze’s request, I talked with her personal assistant for foreign affairs, a man I remembered from my years at the United Nations, but he too seemed isolated and not quite free in what he was saying. The next day, when Yakub Khan came to the airport to say goodbye to Shevardnadze, he indicated he was aware of what I had privately conveyed to Bhutto. He and the military were clearly in charge, and they wanted to win big in Afghanistan.

  During his first meeting with US Secretary of States James Baker, Gorbachev remarked that the Afghan equation was extremely confusing, “So maybe we should let them stew in their own juices,” he added almost in passing. Baker’s reaction was noncommittal, but he often quoted those words later. They become a kind of code for what I called a policy of diminished interest.

  Was it the right policy, and was its policy at all? Both Gorbachev and Bush often said to each other that a victory for Islamic fundamentals in Afghanistan was not in the interest of either the United States or the Soviet Union. I believed that was reason enough to try to develop something like a common policy aimed at preventing that outcome and achieving stability in Afghanistan. With some effort, a coalition that would be acceptable to almost everyone- and “almost” would be enough in that case- could perhaps be put together in Afghanistan. But apparently, the Soviet Union and the United States were not equally interested in such an outcome.