By Stephen Lendman
Four weeks post 9/11, Washington launched naked aggression on Afghanistan, a country posing it no threat.
Planners had endless war and permanent occupation in mind - an imperial scheme planned months in advance, the 9/11 mother of all US false flags the phony pretext.
On October 28, 2007, candidate Obama lied, saying “I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do.”
He systematically violated every major promise made, continuing endless war on Afghanistan Bush began, maintaining permanent occupation - both leaders responsible for millions of deaths, vast destruction, unspeakable human misery, and a nation-state ravaged and destroyed, turned into nightmarish harshness for its people.
Whoever succeeds Obama in January 2017 will continue the same ruthless imperial agenda. America came to Afghanistan to stay, the fundamental rights of its people to live free at peace entirely ignored - longstanding US global policy at home and abroad, running roughshod over rule of law principles and democratic values.
Interviewed by the Washington Post, outgoing US-led NATO Afghan commander General John Campbell indicated escalated Pentagon involvement ahead in the war-torn country after over 14 years of endless US naked aggression, assuring more mass slaughter, destruction and endless misery for its long-suffering people.
US officials in a position to know understand the grand illusion of a long ago lost US war. Another generation or two of fighting won’t change things. Yet conflict continues despite Obama’s to end it throughout his tenure.
His successor and likely others to follow will inherit war without end. How many more millions of Afghan deaths will it take to change things?
How much more vast destruction and intolerable human misery? Most Americans have no idea what’s ongoing in their name.
Their ignorance and indifference let endless horrors persist - the nation’s resources squandered on imperial madness, a maniacal quest for unchallenged global dominance, raping one country after another to achieve its objective.
Campbell is a longtime warrior, the only way stars atop shoulders are gotten. “I’m not going to leave (Afghanistan) without making sure my leadership understands that there are things we need to do,” he blustered. He has lots more deaths and destruction in mind.
In December 2014, Obama declared an end to US combat operations in Afghanistan. Calling it “a milestone,” he lied saying “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.”
It was lawlessly irresponsible from inception, continuing seamlessly from his first day in office to his duplicitous 2014 declaration to today, with no end of US combat operations and occupation planned.
Pentagon commanders urge decades of US occupation and combat ahead, part of America’s long war, former vice president Dick Cheney earlier saying it won’t end in our lifetime.
In congressional testimony, Campbell claimed “Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support” - code language for wanting congressional support for endless war and occupation.
In January, Obama authorized expanding America’s military footprint in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Campbell want US commanders given more flexibility in how they conduct operations - empowering the Joint Chiefs and their field subordinates over civilian authorities if approved, putting important foreign policy decisions in their hands, making America more than ever a modern-day Sparta under these conditions.
Ending Washington’s combat role in Afghanistan on the pretext of serving only in an advisory role was always a ruse, a thinly veiled scheme for permanent war - like in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
US civilian and military officials deplore peace and stability. Endless wars take precedence, an agenda perhaps ending in mass-annihilation. Living by the sword assures perishing by it, humanity hugely at risk today.