No, Joe Biden is not “ending” the War in Afghanistan

By Kit Knightly

Offguadian

“The US acting Air Force Secretary John Roth has already said they have the “Over the Horizon” plan, a 10 billion dollar scheme to fly drone strikes over Afghanistan from airbases in Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE.”

The media is all abuzz with the US “drawdown”, but does that really mean the war is over?

The “big news” in the last couple of days is the American “drawdown” in Afghanistan. Yes, after nearly two decades, the US is finally pulling its troops out of one of the many countries they never had a legal right to be in.

“President” Biden re-affirmed today that the US will be pulling all its forces out of the country by August 31st, adding that the people of Afghanistan must “decide their own future”.

This is being sold all across the media as an end to the (totally illegal and obviously economically motivated) war. Not only that, but the universal message is that ending the war is a bad thing.

The Economist headlines “America’s longest war is ending in crushing defeat”, and warns that life for the Afghanistan people will be worse once NATO has left.

Politico mournfully atones that America “never understood” its war there. While the New York Times comes over all nostalgic and compares the US leaving Afghanistan to the “betrayal” at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975.

Further coverage is already trying to sell us the “cost” of the US withdrawal.

The BBC is reporting that the Taliban are making territorial gains, and the Guardian report that Iran and Russia will step into the “diplomatic vacuum” in the region.

The Evening Standard is going one better, and already priming people for the idea NATO forces will have to go back and start again: “We’ve left Afghanistan but we may well be back“.

But is all this messaging accurate? Is the fighting really over? Did Biden just end a war?

No. Absolutely not. And the official channels are being more than clear about that.

The US acting Air Force Secretary John Roth has already said they have the “Over the Horizon” plan, a 10 billion dollar scheme to fly drone strikes over Afghanistan from airbases in Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE.

On Tuesday, in a press briefing, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby was asked how the US might assist Afghan National Security Defense Forces in the future, he responded:

the way you’ve seen it being conducted in the past – through airstrikes.

Airstrikes and drone strikes will carry on, the White House and Pentagon have been completely up-front on that (The Institute for Public Accuracy has done great work collating all the quotes.)

So, the “war is over”, but the United States will continue to drop bombs on Afghanistan as and when it feels like it (each and every one of those bombs is an individual war crime, by the way).

Via https://off-guardian.org/2021/07/09/no-joe-biden-is-not-ending-the-war-in-afghanistan/