Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • bandar togel
  • maincuan
  • neko77
  • omnibus
  • raja slot
  • situs bandar togel
  • slot gacor
  • slot qris
  • slot zeus
  • slot777
  • slot88
  • stm88
  • stm88
  • winsgoal

Obama’s Ludicrous Afghanistan Declarations
27 Nov 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

President Obama thinks he can make war appear to be peace with a wave of “his semantic magic wand.” U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including elite killer teams, are to be redefined as mere “advisors” to Afghan forces so that America’s “combat” role can be declared ended – to be followed by ten more years of mass killing and occupation.

Obama’s Ludicrous Afghanistan Declarations

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Since when has the U.S. voluntarily left anyplace it has forcibly occupied?”

The most ridiculous actor in the fictitious U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is not President Hamid Karzai, the hustler the U.S. installed as its puppet after the American invasion in 2001. The real clowns in this charade are those Americans that pretend to believe President Obama when he says the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end on the last day of next year. Obama is, of course, lying through his teeth. The United States and its NATO allies plan to keep 10,000 to 16,000 troops in the country, occupying nine bases, some of them set aside for exclusive American use – and would remain there at least ten years, through 2024. Shamelessly, Obama claims these troops – including thousands from the Special Operations killer elite – will have no “combat” role. It’s the same lie President Kennedy told in 1963, when he called the 16,000 U.S. troops then stationed in Vietnam “advisors,” and the same bald-faced deception that Obama, himself, tried to pull off, unsuccessfully, in Iraq – until the Iraqis kicked the Americans out.

Barack Obama has arrogated to himself the right to redefine the very meaning of war, having two years ago declared that the 7-month U.S. bombing campaign against Libya was not really a war because no Americans were killed. In Afghanistan, Obama waves his semantic magic wand

to transform the past 12 years of war into 10 more years of not-war, simply by changing the nomenclature. This is hucksterism from Hell.

“There is zero chance of a zero option.”

If there was a Devil, he would be laughing his butt off at Susan Rice, Obama’s National Security Advisor and raving Banshee of War, whose assignment is to pretend that the U.S. might choose the so-called “Zero Option” if President Karzai doesn’t immediately sign away his country to the Americans for the next ten years. By “Zero Option,” Washington means it might just pick up its killer soldiers and weapons and leave Afghanistan. But that’s an empty bluff. Since when has the U.S. voluntarily left anyplace it has forcibly occupied? There is zero chance of a zero option. But, I am reminded of the events in 1963 Vietnam, when the Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother were overthrown and executed in a U.S.-backed coup. Sending the homicidal Susan Rice to get in President Karzai’s face is definitely some kind of threat.

Far from ending U.S. imperial wars, Barack Obama has expanded the theaters of armed conflict. He tried to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, but the Iraqis insisted on the withdrawal terms and timetable they had negotiated with President George Bush. Iraq is now paying a heavy price, as the U.S. and its allies arm Iraqi Al Qaida and other jihadist elements fighting to overthrow the government of neighboring Syria. These U.S.-backed jihadists – the same ones the Americans fought against in Iraq for eight years – now wage war against Shiites on both sides of the border.

If there is any hope for an eventual peace in the region, it is that Washington might finally begin to understand that it can no longer control events through brute force, or by using jihadists as surrogates in the Middle East and South Asia. Maybe that’s why the Americans have tried to strike a deal with Iran. Maybe President Karzai thinks the winds of change will be sweeping through his neighborhood, soon, and he doesn’t want to go out like the puppet he came in.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

Executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20131127_gf_ObamaStan.mp3

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio September 26, 2025
    26 Sep 2025
    In this week’s segment we discuss the need for self-defense against racist, white supremacist forces. But first we hear about efforts to Build and Fight through a solidarity economy, self-…
  • The Build and Fight Formula
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Build and Fight Formula
    26 Sep 2025
    Our guest is Kali Akuno, co-founder and director of Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi. He joins us from New York to discuss the Build and Fight Formula, its work with the Peoples Network…
  • One People’s Project
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    One People's Project and the Fight Against Racism and Fascism
    26 Sep 2025
    Our guest is Daryle Lamont Jenkins, founder of One People’s Project. One People’s Project seeks to combat right wing, white supremacist groups and individuals by exposing their threat to the world.…
  • X
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Fighting Trump and the Black Collaborators Too
    24 Sep 2025
    Fighting Trump’s racist attacks is obviously a necessity but that fight must include opposing the Black misleadership class and their collaboration.
  • Hugo Chávez Frías
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    SPEECH: Statement at the 61st UN General Assembly, President H.E. Hugo Chávez Frías, 2006
    24 Sep 2025
    “ U.S. imperialism…is making desperate efforts to consolidate its hegemonic system of domination. We cannot allow this to happen.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us