US invasion, occupation destroyed Afghan society

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ralph Schoenman, political analyst, Berkeley about the admission by NATO, saying that any gains made in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not sustainable.

The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.

Press TV: It’s a bit of an embarrassing admission by the United States, isn’t it?

Schoenman: Look, it doesn’t even begin to describe the reality. The Harvard University study estimated as much as six trillion dollars have been expended in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And those are not even the complete figures – these figures are but a little of the beginning of the understanding of what has been done to this country.

The International Rescue Committee calculated that there are nearly three million refugees; there are one million internal refugees; three million Afghans face massive food shortages and job losses.

The country has been devastated; the number of internally displaced persons, the number of destruction of homes and bread winners; the complete devastation of the internal economic life of the country has completely destroyed this society.

And it is only a little beginning because I want to emphasize that what we are talking about is the invasion of Afghanistan that begins after 9/11 and intensified thereafter. But it begins in 1978.

It begins with the accession of the Marxist government, which was then the target of a United State’s CIA intervention and the devastation of Afghanistan in the course of this continuing war. We’re talking about 35 years of continuing war in Afghanistan. So the actual human cost of the destruction of this society is ongoing and there are no limits to it. It encompasses Iraq, it encompasses Afghanistan, encompasses the region, is targeted in Syria and is intended to be extended to Iran.

This is an imperial undertaking that is devastating whole nations and entire populations. Afghanistan is a destroyed society in the wake of the savage invasion, occupation and continued bombardment and destruction of the population.

Press TV: Even this destroyed society as you describe it has posed quite a serious challenge to the United States hasn’t it?

Schoenman: The challenge consists in the fact that the objective of the exercise was to create an unchallenged pipeline from Central Asian oil for which they had sought something like five trillion dollars of short term profit. And they needed to pacify the population and to prevent its obstruction and resistance to the occupation of their country. That is essentially what the project of imperialism outlined.

The great game as described by Zbignew Brzezinski, which was intended to draw the Soviet Union into this, into what he called ‘the bear trap’ was at the cost of destroying Afghan society, but the resistance of the population in spite of the enormous devastation is continuous and ongoing and will never end.