US troops are set to leave Afghanistan in 2014, but an unidentified number will stay behind. This is an open-ended occupation that, combined with a pernicious drug war, constitutes a clear and present danger to Afghan, regional and global security.
Here’s the full transcript of a Q&A session where I fielded questions from rambunctious Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari on US adventurism in Afghanistan.
Kourosh Ziabari:What do you think about the US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement? Will this agreement pave the way for the continuation of US presence in Afghanistan after the troops’ withdrawal of 2014? Won’t such an agreement be detrimental to the interests and security of Afghanistan?
Evgeny Kruschev: Well, if the American mentors themselves consider the Afghan army and police force ‘a joke,’ and are pretty outspoken about the opium poppy puppet regime they hate but have to bolster, what kind of ‘partnership’ are you talking about?
The Afghan/American security misalliance is a livid example of smoldering antagonism, punctuated by point-blank green-on-blue stings; therefore by default any agreement between master and servant would be unilaterally enforced or violated at the whim of the overlord, notwithstanding the lofty legal verbiage committed to paper.
It is not this or the follow-up SOFA, Status of Forces Agreement between Washington & Kabul, which per se is detrimental to the future of Afghanistan.
KZ: There are reports indicating that since the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2003, the cultivation of opium has increased dramatically and the United States hasn’t taken any major steps to fight the drug trade in the war-torn country. You’ve written on this extensively. Would you please explain more about that? Is it a large-scale US policy to condone the rise of drug production?
EK: Purportedly, the White House, whatever its political coloration, has been on the record against narcotics at home and abroad. The grim reality is the much-touted US War on Drugs is agitprop cover for a US drug war on us, worldwide.
Historically, Washington’s political, intelligence and military interference – Southeast Asia, South America, the Balkans and Africa – has been followed by an explosion of narco-production.
Categories: Afghanistan, Americas, Taliban, United States
US occupation soldier ‘going for a stroll’ in an opium field in Afghanistan. Why do they not destroy the opium production? What ‘hidden agenda’ is behind this?