Posted on 08/31/2021 8:08:26 AM PDT by elpadre
It was 20 years ago today Asia Times published Get Osama! Now! Or Else… The rest is history.
Retrospectively, this sounds like news from another galaxy. Before Planet 9/11. Before GWOT (Global War on Terror). Before the Forever Wars. Before the social network era. Before the Russia-China strategic partnership. Before the Dronification of State Violence. Before techno-feudalism.
Allow me to get a little personal. I was back in Peshawar – the Islamic Rome, capital of the tribal areas – 20 years ago after a dizzying loop around Pakistan, tribal territory, a botched smuggling op to Kunar, biding time in Tajikistan, arriving by Soviet helicopter in the Panjshir valley, a harrowing road trip to Faizabad and a UN flight that took ages to arrive.
In the Panjshir, I had finally met “the Lion”: commander Masoud, then plotting a counter-offensive against the Taliban. He told me he was fighting a triad: the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). Less than three weeks later, he was assassinated – by two al-Qaeda operatives disguised as a camera crew, two days before 9/11.
No one, 20 years ago, could possibly have imagined the subsequent slings and arrows of outrageous (not fortune, but) terror. Two decades, $2.3 trillion and at least 240,000 Afghan deaths later, the Taliban are back where they were: ruling Afghanistan.
Masoud Jr in theory leads a “resistance” in the Panjshir – actually, a CIA operation channeled through CIA asset Amrullah Saleh, former Afghan vice-president. Ahmad Masoud, son of Afghanistan’s slain anti-Soviet resistance hero Ahmad Shah Masoud, poses April 4 during a trip to Paris. The son, currently leader of the National Resistance Front, pledges to hold out against the Taliban from his stronghold in the Panjshir valley in northeastern Afghanistan. (go to link - interesting!)
(Excerpt) Read more at asiatimes.com ...
“......It’s important to remember that ISIS-K has become much more powerful in Afghanistan since 2020 because of what I describe as a shadowy transportation ratline from Idlib in Syria to Kunar and Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan.
There is no smoking gun – yet. But what we do have is a serious working hypothesis that ISIS-K may be just another CIA shadow army, in collaboration with the NDS.
All that, if confirmed, would point to a dark future: the continuation of the Forever Wars by other means – and tactics. Yet never underestimate the counter-power of those no-nonsense descendants of White Huns and Sakas.”
When they strike, not if, I sincerely hope it is a Washington D.C. target.
“...the continuation of the Forever Wars by other means ...”
and our industry sector which makes it billions of dollars from these wars will be in 1000% support - doncha know!!!
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