Womens’ liberation in Afghanistan has been a cause célèbre in western countries for some time.

Conveniently absent from the discussion, in most cases, is the rather significant fact that the ascendancy of “Islamic fundamentalism’ in Afghanistan, to the detriment of human rights for women, has been largely the consequence of deliberate western policy over three decades.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: has enjoyed playing chess with other countries

The left-leaning Afghan Government of the late 1970s that initially invited the Soviet Union to assist with military support, actually included significant female participation. The regime in Kabul asked the USSR for help in response to destabilization by Islamic fundamentalists, who were trained and financed by the USA and its proxies. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a US policy-maker responsible for developing this strategy back in the 1970s, gleefully admitted it in an interview 20 years later. He’s proud he played a key role in entrapping the USSR into an unwinnable conflict in Afghanistan.

It’s true that by the time the Taliban consolidated its power in the late 1990s, organisations such as RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, which had also opposed Soviet occupation) were deeply engaged in opposing heightened oppression of women under the zealous new Government’s policies. In 2000 and 2001, as invasion hysteria was brewed up by the western mass media, it often quoted RAWA to highlight the backwardness of the Taliban. But anyone imagining that RAWA supports current US/UK/Australian policy in Afghanistan needs to check the facts.

Excerpt from an artice in RAWA News, July 2009: Child Rapist Police Return Behind U.S., UK Troops

Not only does RAWA oppose the brutal and illegal war, escalated during the Obama Presidency to his great shame. RAWA also publishes some of the most damning criticisms of the war.

Recently it published a quite explosive analysis of what’s really driving the war in Afghanistan and the other US-sponsored wars in the region.

Most people in western countries – including western feminists – get their opinions about Afghanistan from pro-war spin doctors and rarely if ever directly access authentic voices within Afghanistan.

Afghani children attending a RAWA-supported school

I hope to get a better balance of perspectives – and sometimes re-publish unpopular views that deserve at least to be aired.

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this recent article by Farooq Hussain: Defeated in Afghanistan; Let’s invade Iran, published by the RAWA website. I know nothing about the author, whose online references all seem very recent.

I do, however, believe this is a perspective that merits consideration. We need to probe what’s really behind the US/western war surge in central Asia, because the official explanations sure as hell don’t stack up (links and emphasis added):

Defeated in Afghanistan; Let’s invade Iran

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran share the common reasons for the Israel Lobby to force Washington to fight wars for Israel – which are: threat to Israel’s military superiority in the region, opium, and oil.

Farooq Hussain

The Israel Lobby boy from Bush era – US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, admitted defeat in Afghanistan – as quoted by Las Angeles Times on July 19: “The troops are tired. The Americans people of pretty tired. The US-lead forces must gain ground against militants (as if Taliban are the only people carrying guns while Americans, British, Canadian, Australian and Nato – are in Afghanistan to feed hungry people and spread Christianity!) in Afghanistan by next summer to avoid a public perception that war is unwinable. Taliban would not be defeated within one year (it would be 9th year, idiot) but it’s critical that the US military and its allies showed that they are making progress….”

Last week at Economic Club of Chicago – Robert Gates spilled his Zionist beans: “Iran is the one that concerns me the most because there don’t seem to be good options (other than war) wher one can have optimism that good option will be found…..Iran’s is going to have capability to deliver nuclear weapons to the people in their region (maybe the Zionist is ignorant of the fact that Tehran already has the delivery mechanism to reach Tel Aviv – however, they need a nuclear weapon. Maybe they can steal one of Israel’s 240 nuclear bombs!) a lot sooner than they’re going to have the capability to deliver them to us (don’t woory – Tehran already has a terrorist group in the US, known as MOSSAD).

[The] Jewish controlled mainstream media has already started echoing Afghanistan to become Obama’s Vietnam. For example, Newsweek, on July 16 published John Barry’s article saying that “even the coalition commanders in Afghanistan wonder if they can win the war”. Sahil Kapur writing for the Zionist think tank Huffingtonpost, though admitted that Iraq-Afghanistan war has “contributed to an exploding deficit, a $10 trillion debt, a US army stretched thin and a nearlu unmanageable economic crisis”. However, for the benefit of his native India – he pleaded on February 18, 2009: “Don’t Let Afghanistan Become Obama’s Vietnam”.

Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran share the common reasons for the Israel Lobby to force Washington to fight wars for Israel – which are: threat to Israel’s military superiority in the region, opium, and oil. In addition to Iran’s progress in the nuclear field, Islamic Resistance groups Hizb’Allah and Hamas have shaken Israel’s myth of invincibility. Like Iraq, Iran too has huge deposits of oil and gas. It sits on the world’s largest oil reserves, the Zagros Oil Belt. Taliban banned opium cultivation and brought it to its lowest level (178 tons), which sent socks to the Jewish monopolized The Wall Street. Since US occupation – the opium cultivation has jumped to over 4,000 tons per year. Afghanistan also sits between Turkmenistan, home to world’s third largest natural gas reserves and a lucrative market for the Israelis. The Caspian Basin is estimated to be worth more than US$5 trillion.

There are two plans to exploit Caspian oil reserves. One is oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan to Pakistani port of Gwadar (Balochistan) and then shipped to refineries in Israel – and the other is oil and gas pipelines to Turkish port of Ceyhan and thence to Israel’s oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat.

Yosef A. Maiman, an Israeli billionaire, owns lion’s share of Turkmenistan’s oil and gas industry. He is the “Special Ambassador” of Israel to Turkmenitan government. He is also Israel’s “Honrary Consul” in Peru. In keeping with Israeli political interests, Maiman’s planned pipelines bypass Iran and Russia. Maiman has said: “I have no objection in dealing with Iran, “when and if Israeli policy allows it”.”

According to American WesternGeco Geophysical Company – “The Turkmen sector of Caspian Sea contains up to 11 billion tons of oil and 5.5 trillion cubic meters of gas. A few days earlier the Special Envoy of the US Secretary of State for Eurasian Energy, Richard Morningstar, visited Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Both the US and Israel are training Azerbaijan armed forces against Armenia which maintains close relations with Islamic Iran and Russia.

This oil is mine: G-d gave it to me just as He gave me the Holy Land (Palestine).

British political satirists John Bird and John Fortune discussed the so-called credit crunch back in October 2007.

This skit isn’t dated in the least. The biggest joke of all – failed gambler-bankers walking away with massive bonuses at the taxpayer’s expense – is still breaking news.

Here’s an extract from the report in yesterday’s Daily Mail: How bailed-out U.S. banks kept on dishing out bonuses

Nine Wall Street banks received a combined £75billion in taxpayer cash last October to help them survive the financial meltdown.

But according to a shocking report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, bonuses paid by several of the biggest institutions were ‘substantially greater’ than the banks’ earnings.

• Goldman Sachs’s net income was £1.4billion, yet it paid out nearly £2.8billion in bonuses. It received £6 billion in bail-out funds.
• Morgan Stanley earned £1billion and paid nearly £2.7billion in bonuses. It also received £6billion from the taxpayer.
• JPMorgan Chase earned £3.3billion, paid £5.2billion in bonuses and received £15 billion from the government.

Citigroup, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, which all needed government funds, also paid billions to hundreds of executives despite posting massive losses.

The report claimed that America’s biggest banks awarded a total of nearly 4,800 bosses with bonuses of a million dollars or more each last year.

Mr Cuomo said his office studied historical financial filings and found that at many banks compensation increased in the 2003-2006 bull market years, but stayed at those levels as the mortgage crisis and recession hit.

‘Thus, when the banks did well, their employees were paid well. When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well.

‘And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well,’ he said. ‘Bonuses and overall compensation did not vary significantly as profits diminished.’