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February 25th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda Some 2,000 furious Afghans protested outside the base on Tuesday, chanting “Death to America” and hurling stones and petrol bombs at the base. “Death to America” and “Death to Barack Obama” also reverberated in other places including the capital Kabul, Jalalabad, Logar, Uruzgan, Faryab, Baghlan and Laghman Provinces.
The protesters surrounded the base, demanding the perpetrators of the unholy act face justice and the foreign troops to pack up and leave. The response? A barrage of live rounds and bloodshed. Two of the protesters were killed by the very troops who are supposed to protect them.
Bagram air base, also home to a notorious prison where in excess of 600 Afghan prisoners are held by American forces in illegal black holes, is the symbol of people’s resentment of the US-led occupation.
The French News agency, AFP reported that “The copies of the burnt Qur’ans and Islamic religious texts were obtained by Afghan workers contracted to work inside Bagram air base, and presented to demonstrators gathered outside the military installation.”
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and then US President Barack Obama issued apologies over the matter in a bid to calm the situation. But contrary to their expectations, the apologies failed to cool down the simmering rage. At least nine people were killed in Wednesday’s protests, including two US soldiers. Outraged Afghans also set fire to part of a housing compound used by foreign contractors in Kabul.
The burning of the Holy Qur’an has become another public relations disaster for Washington. It’s the latest in a series of actions by US soldiers that has infuriated the Afghans, coming on the heels of the emergence, in mid January 2012, of a video that showed American soldiers in Afghanistan urinating on the bodies of dead Afghan fighters.
The Islamic tradition respects the dead bodies of not only Muslims but also non-Muslims and considers their desecration as a serious crime.
The frequent occurrences of such provocative acts show the US military’s brazen disregard for the Afghans’ deep-rooted Islamic and traditional beliefs and sensitivities.
Washington has been saying that one of the objectives of its post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, the longest in US history, is to win the hearts and minds of Afghans as the rudiments for defeating the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
But the latest incident signifies a major failure on the public relations front for the US military that wanted to win the trust of a people under occupation.
Political Blogger Kevin Drum says in an article for Mother Jones that “We are not going to win their hearts and minds. In the past half-century, American military operations have never successfully won anybody’s hearts and minds. It’s time to acknowledge this and leave Afghanistan.”
Amrullah Saleh, the former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence has said in a recent article that “Negotiating with the Taliban after more than 10 years of fighting means giving legitimacy and space to militant extremism. The objective of NATO’s post-9/11 intervention in Afghanistan was to starve militant extremism by defeating the nexus of al-Qaeda and the Pakistan-backed Taliban. That now seems like a dream.”
The situation is no better in other aspects including economy. Afghan economy is not functioning and billions of dollars spent in the country have not led to meaningful improvement in the economy. A late 2011 poll by Gallop showed that the number of Afghans who were suffering is rising. It found that “Three out of ten Afghans, or 30 percent” of them are determined to be “suffering.” That is “7 percentage points higher than in 2010.”
And Amnesty International said in a report it recently published that the war in Afghanistan affects more Afghans now than at any point over the past ten years. It said some four hundred Afghans are displaced daily and that half a million of them are abandoned to starvation and death.
On the military front, despite the presence of thousands of US-led forces, they have failed to eliminate the Taliban. And now after over 10 years of war and occupation, the US is wooing the insurgents for talks.
The leader of Pakistan’s Tehrik-i-Taliban Waliur-Rehman Mehsud has recently told Press TV that Washington has sought to launch peace talks with the Afghan Taliban because its mission has failed in Afghanistan. Mehsud added that the US-led invasion of Afghanistan was initially aimed at eliminating the Taliban militants or making them surrender. However, he added, the foreign forces’ failure to do so has forced Washington into a negotiating position. Mehsud added
that the US and its allies are trying to whitewash their defeat in
Afghanistan under the guise of advocating dialog.
Anti-US sentiment is rife in Afghanistan but not only for the disrespect of people’s religion. The list includes the use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs, continual night raids which have killed many civilians including women and children and the use of killer drones just to some of them.
Despite its claims, respect for human rights and democracy has always been a cover for the US government to advance its foreign policies. They become important universal values if you don’t comply with Washington’s policies. They, however, will become non-existent if you’re its satellite country that serve its strategic interests and feed its empire.
You have any doubts? So just look who were or are Washington’s allies in the past several decades. Think of autocrat Shah of Iran, the military dictator of Chile, Augustine Pinochet, or Iraq’s butcher, Saddam Hussein, or Yemen’s ruler of 32 years, Ali Abdullah Saleh, or Egypt’s long-time president Hosni Mubarak, or the kings of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Washington has run out of options to turn the tide. Negotiation with the Taliban is a clear evidence of the US political bankruptcy in Afghanistan. Its arrogance and egotism may not allow it to confess to this fact. The only option left for the White House is a speedy withdrawal.
DB/PKH
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