US Considering Major Afghanistan Drawdown: Is This the End of Endless War

Fresh off the announcement of a US military withdrawal from Syria, officials are saying that the Trump administration is actively considering a major drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan, potentially starting in the next few weeks.

News ID: 442569

Date: 22 December 2018 - 16:27

Details are still emerging on this discussion, but the recent struggles of the Afghan War have been very well publicized. With the August 2017 escalation in Afghanistan having gone poorly, there have been reports for months of the US administration changing direction. The Pentagon had been pushing hard against a drawdown, however, trying to emphasize the large death tolls in Afghanistan as a sign of progress.

But the drawdown could be coming very soon, according to White House officials. They say the first US troops could be returning home as soon as January. Though official troop levels aren’t well documented anymore, there are an estimated 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan. There are also thousands more in other military bases stretched across the region, which clearly means the US will never abandon its open-ended wars in the Muslim world:

One thing that will not change under President Trump is the US military's occupation of the Muslim world on the pretext of War on Terror. For-Profit President Trump has announced that American troops will stay in Iraq and that he is for establishing a no-fly zone over the Syria-Iraq border - if the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies pay for it.

Given that America’s state of emergency is going to be permanent long after ISIL and Trump, it has allowed the US government to continue its vendetta against the resistance front, a non-aligned group that seeks to stay outside the realm of American power and influence – mainly Iran, Iraq, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The Trump administration accuses the resistance front of supporting terrorism, while they are the only force in the entire Middle-East effectively fighting terrorist organizations like ISIL and Al-Qaeda.

This situation does not require a state of emergency throughout the region, especially since the US government routinely rides roughshod over basic sovereign rights in any case. Presumably, the state of emergency – and the subsequent terror war - is a hedge against any nation brave enough to take the US government to an international court in defense of its sovereign rights.

Into the argument, America’s state of emergency and permanent war is not primarily related to ISIL or Al-Qaeda, though the bombings and attacks carried out by terrorists from those groups in Europe and the United States contributed to a sense of insecurity that lies in the background of the US-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington, Riyadh and Tel Aviv blame Iran, Iraq and Syria for the emergence of ISIL, which works for Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US!!!

Many nations targeted by ISIL, however, are not pro-US at all but critics of Washington’s meddling in internal affairs of the Muslim world. The US and its allies claim to be fighting what they call a proxy war with Iran in Syria and Yemen, but they have extended it to attack Iran and Russia, whose forces helped liberate many ISIL-held cities and towns.

ISIL has been uprooted by the resistance front in Syria and Iraq, but hope is still in jeopardy. The state of emergency, which Washington has said will not be lifted as long as the threat of global terrorism remains, is here to stay. After ISIL was defeated on many fronts by the allied forces of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia, the Trump government escalated the conflict. It allowed open-ended occupation without a warrant from Syrian government or United Nations.

Make no mistake. The danger of terrorism is real, and as ISIL dwindles it may lash out in revenge at any country. But that does in no way give an international warrant to the US to build illegal bases, occupy Muslim lands, and police the region in between. The real threat, nonetheless, is America’s permanent state of emergency and war, under which it can make law, occupy lands, and create colonial crises at will. The aim seems not so much to combat terrorism as to strengthen the US influence against international civil society.

It makes sense that Trump has gleefully signed a new executive order that allows American arms manufacturers to sell even more weapons to the Persian Gulf Araba monarchies. As we speak, they are busy bombing Yemen, including its schools, hospitals, and markets - with tacit support from the United States.

This astounding series of actions makes clear that Trump’s pervasive and consequential conflicts of interest has immersed his administration in a permanent miasma of confrontation with the Muslim world and the international community:

Using Muslims as a scapegoat, being mean to the people who are the victims of America’s terrorism and wars, building a wall along the Mexican border, backing the Saudi-led war on Yemen, the Muslim travel ban and never-ending occupation of Iraq, the failed plans to create no-fly zones over Syria and to massively expand America’s financial-military support to Israel, the provocative moves of the US Navy to incite violence in the South China Sea, and that of NATO along the borders with Russia, and on and on. So, despite the abrupt announcement of troop withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, there remain extraordinary dangers ahead in Washington’s endless war on many fronts.