Out of the Closet in Yemen

The colossal stupidity of the United States Government was on display with its recent missile strikes on Yemeni radar sites. The USG is now publicly committed to protecting all Red Sea shipping in the Bab el Mandeb bottleneck. This from "Yemen Sees U.S. Strikes as Evidence of Hidden Hand Behind Saudi Air War" by Mark Mazzetti, Ben Hubbard and Matthew Rosenberg:

The United States has also kept warships in the region to guard a sea lane through which four million barrels of oil pass each day. There, in the narrow strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, the dizzying mix of warships, cargo vessels and insurgent forces this week yielded precisely what the Obama administration had spent 18 months trying to avoid. 

The American strikes, launched at rebel-held territory, came after two unsuccessful missile attacks on the Mason in four days, the Pentagon said Thursday, and were intended solely to protect American forces and other shipping in Bab el Mandeb, the strait separating Yemen from Eritrea and Djibouti.

More attacks would invite further retaliation, Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, said Thursday. American and allied warships will continue to patrol the strait, he said, but “we don’t seek a wider role in the conflict.” 

That may be the case, but the United States now finds itself facing a dangerous situation in a narrow stretch of water where even small incidents run the risk of inciting a broader conflict. 

After the American strikes, Iran said it was sending two warships to the strait, presumably to support the Houthis, an indigenous Shiite group with loose connections to Iran. Saudi Arabia has portrayed the Houthis as an Iranian proxy force and has said that it needed to intervene in Yemen to protect Saudi national security by preventing the rise of a belligerent militia on its southern border.

This commitment to Bab el Mandeb  cannot be easily undone. The U.S. is now "out of the closet" in Yemen; at the same time, it is talking about a shooting war with Russia over Aleppo.

What is fascinating about this full embrace of total and perpetual war by the rulers of the "indispensable nation" is that it comes absent any evidence of support from the American masses. The organs of the mainstream media -- The New York Times, CNN -- have been cranking out noise directly from Central Intelligence, day in and day out, for months -- no, years. To no avail. People do not want to go to war with Syria, and definitely not Russia, no matter how many times little Omran Daqneesh's bloody face is flashed.

Combine this with the onrushing election of a president who is likely the most unpopular -- the only other contenders that spring to mind are Nixon 1968 and John Quincy Adams 1824 -- and you have a recipe for a lot of instability. Because you know Hillary is a warhawk.

The system is so rancid and distended I don't see how it can be maintained. A correction is called for pronto. And that is the point of politics, to provide such a correction. Is the GOP civil war correction enough? I don't think so.

Electorally, the best that could be hoped for would be record low turnout and 5% for each third-party presidential candidate, giving Greens and Libertarians federal matching funds. Militarily, there needs to be a singular, exemplary defeat along the lines of the fall of Saigon. Maybe in Kabul, or possibly a messy civil war between U.S. proxies in Mosul following the rout of the Islamic State?

U.S. Project in Afghanistan: Going, Going, Soon to be Gone

The jaw-dropping absurdity that is the Western project in Afghanistan is on display in two stories published yesterday and today in The New York Times. 

Yesterday, Alissa Rubin, in "Life Pulls Back in Afghan Capital, as Danger Rises and Troops Recede," tours a greatly changed Kabul from "the surge" days of yesteryear. Gone are most of the Westerners, as well as the restaurants and nightspots that served them. Helicopters shuttle U.S. embassy staff to and from the airport; driving is considered too dangerous. Afghans stand in line at the Interior Ministry office to get papers stamped in order to exit the the country:

KABUL, Afghanistan — If there had been grumbling before about the deafening intrusion of low-flying American helicopters in the Afghan capital, the discontent has surely multiplied along with the number of flights: packs of them now, coming two, four, six at a time, starting around 7 a.m., then again at midday and at dusk. 

Why so many? 

“The American Embassy’s not allowed to move by road anymore,” a senior Western official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the news media. 

“If you’re at the airport and you have work at the embassy or at R.S.,” he said, referring to the international coalition’s mission, known as Resolute Support, “they fly you over in the morning and back at night.” 

After 14 years of war, of training the Afghan Army and the police, it has become too dangerous to drive the mile and a half from the airport to the embassy.

If that doesn't conjure up the Saigon of 1975, read on. It is fascinating story, the kind of "reporter's notebook" I wish the Gray Lady would indulge in more often:

One favored spot over the years was the Design Cafe, a place with what might be called Kabul chic: sconces on the walls and low Afghan-style seats with cushions indoors and rattan furniture in its leafy courtyard. The cafe made an amazing mint lemonade in the summers, with icy, barely sweet, shredded mint whipped in until the drink turned a frothy green. 

Now, on a hot day in August, the corrugated metal door was locked, and no amount of banging on it brought an answer. Through the small square grate, all that was visible was a dusty courtyard, a couple of plastic bags blowing across it in the late afternoon wind. 

The cafe had a second outpost in a more secure neighborhood, and that one appeared to be open — at least someone answered the door. 

But walking inside was like entering an attic. The upholstered chairs were covered in dust, and a couple of them no longer had cushions, as if this were the last lot for sale at an auction, when all that was left was the furniture nobody bid on. 

Was it possible to get a coffee? The two guards conferred. Then one said, “Yes.” 

He would go look for the cook, he said doubtfully, then appeared relieved when he was told not to worry about it. 

It was not just the expatriates leaving; the Afghans were going, too, and in droves.

But the story that takes the cake is today's. In "Afghan Businessman Convicted in Kabul Bank Fraud Is Still Free to Make Money," Mujib Mashal describes how Khalilullah Frozi, the guy convicted of bilking the Kabul Bank of close to $1 billion, is actually partnering with Ashraf Ghani's government to develop real estate. Ghani endeared himself to his Western backers last year upon assuming the presidency by promising that he would go hard after the people responsible for defrauding Kabul Bank. Brokering deals with the convicted fraudster and allowing him to serve out his 15-year sentence at night by sleeping in a posh cell stuffed with floor cushions and Persian rugs doesn't really conjure up the sobriquet "The Ralph Nader of Afghanistan."

KABUL, Afghanistan — In a big day for development here, a notable Afghan businessman stood with top government officials on Wednesday as he signed the contract for a new township: 8,800 homes across 33 acres of prime real estate in the heart of the capital, with an initial investment of at least $95 million.

There was just one problem: The businessman, Khalilullah Frozi, is supposed to be serving a 15-year prison sentence for his role in defrauding Kabul Bank of nearly $1 billion of depositors’ money. The scheme broughtAfghanistan’s biggest bank, where Mr. Frozi was listed as chief executive, near collapse in 2010, and it deeply shook trust in the Western-backed financial system here. 

But Mr. Frozi, it seems, will be spending his days making money while he serves his sentence at night.

Five years after the banking scandal, the apparent unwillingness of the Afghan authorities to deal firmly with the perpetrators is perhaps one of the most glaring examples of Western impotence in the fight to clean up a system that the United States, chiefly, built and paid for.

But wait. It gets worse:

Mr. Ghani’s coalition government depends on many of the same players [that Mr. Frozi bought when he headed Kabul Bank], and could do little more now than to reach a compromise with Mr. Frozi, the analysts say. 

Mr. Frozi’s enduring influence ensured him luxury even in jail, from where he was reportedly released regularly to watch his soccer team, Ferozi F.C. 

On a daily basis, Mr. Frozi posted photographs and poems on his Facebook page from his cell, which was specially furnished with cushions and maroon Persian rugs, its walls painted a pale yellow. 

Among the images is one of him with his children lounging on the cushions during family visit day. There is even a photograph of Mr. Frozi in the prison yard, hanging out with Taliban prisoners. 

“In Pul-i-Charkhi prison, with the political opponents of the National Unity Government,” the caption reads, in reference to Mr. Ghani’s coalition that he just signed a partnership with.

Obama's decision to extend the presence of U.S. troops through the end of 2016 needs to be seen for what it is: a delaying tactic that dumps the mess on the lap of whomever succeeds him. The Taliban have already won. That's why there is a mass migration underway. In all those stories about refugees flocking to Europe, Afghans are the next nationality mentioned after Syrians.

The U.S. project in Afghanistan is an abject failure. Kingpins like Khalilullah Frozi, who stored the money looted from Kabul Bank in the U.A.E., will be fine, I would imagine, when the Taliban take control of Kabul.

Doctors Without Borders is still waiting after one month for an answer from the Pentagon why its hospital in Kunduz was blown apart and its staff killed. Was the reason for the attack really to assassinate an ISI agent?

U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, tracking all the way back to the days of Jimmy Carter, is inherently part of the global guy-wires of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. Its onrushing collapse portends a great change coming our way.

Tipping Point Near in Afghanistan

As a grade-school kid I don't recall paying a lot of attention to the news. I remember my mother watching the Senate Watergate hearings; I remember when Nixon resigned -- it was almost time to go back to school after summer vacation. But I don't have any recollection of the Fall of Saigon. I was in the fifth grade.

I think to most people who don't pay much mind to national and international events -- which is to say most people -- the capture of the capital of South Vietnam by the NLF seemed like an afterthought, something along the lines of, "Oh, that hasn't already happened?"

I mention all this because that is basically where we are at with Afghanistan these days. Kabul is at no risk of falling to the Taliban anytime soon. But the news of the last several months has gone from bad to worse. This morning Joseph Goldstein files another dire report, "Taliban Make Gains Across 3 Provinces in Afghanistan."

Bear in mind that the Taliban gains in the north are in the old stomping ground of the Northern Alliance, the United Front of warlords that beat back the Taliban post-9/11 with the aid of U.S. air power and the CIA. As Goldstein points out, the government of Ashraf Ghani is on the verge of losing control of its first major city, Kunduz, on the border of Tajikistan, to the Taliban:

A renewed Taliban push has also imperiled Kunduz, the second most important city in the north, which sits near the border with Tajikistan. On Monday, the Taliban seized towns on the outskirts of the city and took control of scores of villages in a district to its southeast, a leading pro-government militia commander in Kunduz Province, Mir Alam, said by telephone.

The Taliban’s advance occurred amid a retreat by local militias that are allied with the government, said local officials and militia commanders. On Tuesday, militia commanders and their fighters were blaming the government for providing them with little in the way of support or ammunition. “During the fighting, I ran out of mortar rounds — to buy one mortar round would cost me 2,000 afghanis,” or about $33, said a local militia commander, Mohammad Omar Pakhsa Paran. “Where would I get the money to buy rounds?”

Mr. Pakhsa Paran said that he commanded 700 men and that, until Monday, he had managed to hold off the Taliban for two years from the area he controlled in Khanabad, a district to the south and east of the city of Kunduz. “When I called the police chief and the commander of the second army brigade to ask for the support needed to defeat the Taliban, they did not answer,” he said, adding that two of his men had been killed, 16 wounded and seven captured before a number of militias, his included, retreated. He said that, all told, about 2,000 armed pro-government fighters had retreated.

The city has been under threat since April, with the Taliban forces in the area bolstered by militants from Central Asia.

Government security officials believe the Taliban see Kunduz as a major prize: If it falls, it will be the first city they have managed to seize since their government was toppled in late 2001. In recent months, the insurgents have pushed into the city’s outskirts and seized control of neighboring districts, only to disperse before government forces managed to counterattack. Whether insurgent forces will make an all-out push for the city this time remains to be seen.

But already, there is mounting anger at the government’s inability to keep the Taliban at bay, as civilians fear being killed as the front lines have shifted.

“Is Kunduz a part of the government or does it have no importance?” Amruddin Wali, the deputy head of the Kunduz provincial council, asked in an interview. “The government came here once and made a show of pushing back the Taliban, but they are drowning in their own negligence, and they have let the Taliban come back.”

A spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense is quoted by Goldstein saying don't worry; the government has a plan to recapture territory lost to the Taliban. This is becoming a common refrain. Eventually a tipping point is going to be reached. And we seem to be getting nearer that point as local militia flee and the Afghan National Police surrender:

The Taliban’s latest territorial gains were preceded by a demoralizing blow to the nation’s security forces on Saturday, when nearly 110 policemen surrendered to the Taliban after their base in the northeast came under attack. The episode, which is being described as the largest surrender by Afghan forces in years, illustrates a weakness in the government’s war strategy.

In trying to hold all the territory the American-led coalition turned over to Afghan forces in recent years, the military has spread itself thin across an isolated patchwork of bases that are often beyond the reach of reinforcements. Without the benefit of American air power, the military now finds that its units are often cut off and are being overrun by Taliban forces, which can total over 100 men at a time.

The police base that was attacked last week, in a lawless region of Badakhshan Province, was reportedly well-supplied and heavily staffed. In an interview, Badakhshan’s deputy governor, Gul Mohammad Baidar, said it had supplies for 200 men “that could last for at least three months.”

But when the police on the base found themselves surrounded by a larger Taliban force, the battle lasted for just over two days before the police retreated to a nearby mountain. There, they negotiated a surrender.

“They claimed that lack of on-time reinforcements and air support left them no other choice,” Mr. Baidar said. Most of the police officers came from the surrounding areas and were allowed to return home once they handed over their weapons and swore not to rejoin the government, officials said. An additional 50 or 60 men from elsewhere in Badakhshan are believed to have fled while the surrender was being negotiated.

Afghanistan is increasingly going the way of Syria. Ghani like Assad governs a nation in name only. Territory is carved off on a regular basis. The U.S. will prevent Kabul from falling. But the more territory the Taliban is able to clear and hold, the more untenable Ghani's position at the negotiating table becomes. The end game here is some sort of settlement by the U.S. with the Taliban.

This should not be a problem for the realpolitik Obama administration, which is supporting genocide in Yemen alongside its Wahhabi partner Saudi Arabia at the same time it performed a recent somersault in northern Syria by embracing Turkey's war on the Kurds.

U.S. Project in Afghanistan Looking Very Wobbly

Two stories emanating from Afghanistan in the last two days -- "Afghans Protest After U.S. Forces Carry Out Raid on Strongman" by Mujib Mashal; and "In Afghanistan, Suicide Blast and Angry Crowd Target American Soldiers" by Joseph Goldstein and Ahmad Shakib -- highlight the duplicity of the Obama administration's public declaration that U.S. combat operations have ceased in that country.

The first story describes a raid by U.S. military on a local militia (non-Taliban) leader in Parwan Province, home to the U.S. mega-base Bagram Airfield, to destroy a weapons depot. The raid sparked a significant protest:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Protesters in the northern Afghan province of Parwan blocked the main highway there on Monday after American forces raided the village of a local strongman and blew up a weapons depot belonging to him, officials and residents said. 

The raid on Monday morning demonstrated that American troops in Afghanistan, months after President Obama declared their regular combat mission over, are engaged beyond their publicly stated role of advising the Afghan forces and carrying out targeted counterterrorism operations. 

It also highlighted how, despite a lengthy campaign to disarm illegal militias, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, armed groups that have no apparent ties to Al Qaeda or even the Taliban are still considered by American forces to be a significant threat.

The target of Monday’s raid was Jan Ahmad, a local commander who fought the Soviets and then the Taliban. Hours after the raid, shops in Charikar, the capital of Parwan Province, just north of Kabul, remained closed as Mr. Ahmad’s supporters shouted, “Death to America” and “Death to the enemies of Islam.” They expressed outrage at the manner of the raid, saying it was a matter that the Afghan authorities, not foreign forces, should have handled.

“The protesters burned a lot of tires to show their rage,” said Mahmood Hamidy, 20, who runs a private school in Charikar, “and that, if the issue is not taken seriously, they are ready for violence.”

While the American military described the raid as force protection, former commanders and local elders in the north leveled accusations that the raid had been politically motivated and possibly a settling of scores from last year’s election crisis.

Mr. Ahmad has supported Abdullah Abdullah, who was President Ashraf Ghani’s rival in the bitterly contested presidential runoff. At the height of the crisis, Mr. Ahmad was among a group of commanders who threatened to use force to support a breakaway government led by Mr. Abdullah.

Echoing his calls for restraint during the election crisis, Mr. Abdullah, who is now the chief executive in a power-sharing government with Mr. Ghani, called on the protesters Monday to remain calm as he appointed a fact-finding mission and asked Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of United States forces in Afghanistan, to provide further information on the raid.

The gist of the story is particularly troubling for the U.S.-backed Ghani-Adbullah government. Militias are stockpiling weapons and gearing up for battle in anticipation of a coming collapse of authority in Kabul, and Ghani is using American troops to beat them down.

The second story, filed yesterday by Goldstein and Shakib, describes a suicide attack on a U.S. military convoy moving through Kabul that ended up in an anti-American protest after it appears troops fired on people trying to come to the assistance of those injured by the blast:

KABUL, Afghanistan — A convoy of American troops survived a huge suicide bomb attack in Kabul on Tuesday afternoon, only to find themselves struggling against a gathering crowd of Afghans who were trying to tend to civilians wounded in the bombing. 

The confusing scene left one American soldier wounded, possibly by a knife, as Afghans shouted, “Death to Americans,” and accused the soldiers of opening fire on them in the frightening seconds after the suicide attack, witnesses said.

The episode hinted at a lingering wellspring of anger against American troops even as the United States’ military presence in Afghanistan is receding. Convoys of heavily armored troop carriers are still spotted routinely in Kabul making shuttle runs between bases and embassies and the airport.

Around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, in the hot midday hours, a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb amid one such convoy, on Airport Road. The blast did not kill or seriously injure any of the soldiers, but it wounded at least 22 Afghans, including passing motorists and roadside shopkeepers, and killed at least one, officials said.

What happened next is still being pieced together. But at some point, a member of the crowd attacked and most likely stabbed an American soldier who had exited one of the vehicles to form a cordon, witnesses said. A soldier opened fire, although it was unclear whether the shots came before or after the crowd member’s attack. Some witnesses said the American soldiers, along with Afghan security officials who were nearby, had fired only warning shots.

These stories follow a week where there was a suicide attack on the Parliament in Kabul while Afghan lawmakers were trying to confirm a defense minister. The ministry has gone leaderless since the extra-legal Ghani-Abdullah coalition government assumed power from Hamid Karzai last September. Parliament's term has expired; it is in session based on presidential fiat. The Taliban is taking territory in the north.

Joseph Goldstein and Rod Nordland reported last week in "Taliban Strike Afghan Parliament as Lawmakers Meet" that things are dire for the U.S. project in Afghanistan:

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban attacked the Afghan Parliament on Monday [June 22] just as lawmakers were convening for their third attempt to confirm a defense minister, while in northern Afghanistan a second district fell to Taliban insurgents. 

At least two bystanders died in the attack on Parliament and more than two dozen were injured, but government officials said that all members of Parliament had been taken to safety with at most only minor injuries. 

The seizure of the Archi district, which was confirmed by an Afghan Local Police commander, deepened concern that an attack on neighboring Kunduz, the capital of Kunduz Province, was imminent. Archi was the second neighboring district to fall in two days. On Sunday, the Ministry of Defense and other officials confirmed Taliban claims that the Chahar Dara district had fallen to the insurgents that morning.

The Parliament attack was an embarrassment to the government, apparently timed to coincide with the appearance of the acting defense minister, Masoom Stanekzai, in an effort to win confirmation. The attack was initiated just as Mr. Stanekzai and the country’s second vice president, Sarwar Danish, arrived at the hall in southwestern Kabul.

The country has been without a confirmed defense minister for nearly 10 months, since the coalition government of President Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated in September. Mr. Stanekzai was Mr. Ghani’s third choice for the post; his other candidates were rejected by Parliament.

The term of the Afghan Parliament expired Sunday, with no arrangements yet agreed upon between Mr. Ghani and his coalition partners for new elections. Mr. Ghani extended its term in office until new elections are held, although it is unclear whether such a move was constitutional.

As the Ghani-Abdullah government wobbles, the Taliban is softening its image, reaching out to women ("Taliban Are Talking Peace, Though Not With Afghan Government" by Mujib Mashal). One wonders how close the Kabul-based U.S.-dependent government of the former Johns Hopkins professor is to experiencing its own helicopter-on-the-U.S.-embassy-in-Saigon moment.