WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sgt. Dan McKnight, Afghanistan war veteran and founder of BringOurTroopsHome.US, Saturday praised President Donald Trump’s announcement of a peace agreement with Taliban forces that could lead to total withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan some time next year. The announcement came a day after McKnight blasted Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for attempting to publicly undercut Trump’s efforts.
“After nearly two decades, we’re grateful that our Commander-in-Chief stood with the American people and with America’s fighting men and women and their families," McKnight said, "and ignored the wolf-crying demands of chicken hawks such as Liz Cheney, whose family profiteered from hundreds of millions of dollars in military contracts, literally making money off wars they sent other people to fight."
"The demands Ms. Cheney tried to dictate to the president earlier this week were designed to do one thing," McKnight said, "prevent him from keeping his campaign promise to end the longest war in American history and bring our troops home. Thank you for listening to the American people, Mr. President, and ignoring Chicken Hawk Cheney.”
Cheney Wednesday released a letter – signed by just 21 other House Republicans – publicly challenging the president’s efforts and demanding that any agreement "must not contain a commitment for a full US withdrawal" of troops from Afghanistan.
"Warmongering chicken hawks like Ms. Cheney – who’s never put on a uniform herself, and whose family profiteered from hundreds of millions of dollars in US military contracts – have schemed to keep the United States in perpetual war for nearly a generation, always expecting other people’s families to pay the price in blood and trillions of taxpayer dollars," said McKnight, who served eighteen months in the Pech River Valley with the Idaho Army National Guard.
"Thankfully, we finally have a Commander-in-Chief in President Trump,” McKnight said, “with the courage to stand up to the Chicken Hawk Cheneys and the military industrial complex that General Eisenhower warned us about, who’s trying to end these ridiculous, endless, bankrupting wars and finally bring our troops home."
McKnight said while Cheney’s attempt to "once again publicly undercut the president’s efforts is a slap in the face to those who’ve actually served, bled, and died," he’s encouraged that the House Republican Conference Chair could persuade less than two dozen of the 196 other Republicans in the House to join her in signing the letter.
"Hopefully, given the broken record of her incessant demands that we continue to spill American blood and treasure at every turn, in one country after another, that’s a sign of her increasingly diminished credibility and influence on US foreign and military policy," McKnight said.
McKnight noted a Politico poll last year which found that – in direct contradiction to Cheney’s demands that US forces not be withdrawn – 81 percent of Trump voters support the president’s efforts to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, and a YouGov poll last month which found that 70 percent of all Americans also support withdrawing troops from the war-torn country.
BringOurTroopsHome.US is dedicated to ending the war in Afghanistan, removing our military forces from the Middle East, and insisting the Constitution of the United States be faithfully observed.
For more information, call Sgt. Dan McKnight 208-631-0258. Or contact press@bringourtroopshome.us or www.bringourtroopshome.us.
The agreement is not a great start, and may be more intended to break up the Taliban’s spring campaign momentum than bring peace. This may be about taking momentum away from Russian attempts to end the war and the U.S. potentially being shut out of the region.
Until the U.S. actually withdraws, nothing is certain, and there is a year and a half wait time.
As Pepe Escobar notes, CIA heroine ratlines are not only unaffected, they may be allowed to expand, while the Taliban is seemingly held to a far higher, or at least more arbitrary, standard of non-aggression.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/02/the-afghanistan-peace-deal-riddle/
“Let’s break them down to four points.
1- US counter-terror forces would be allowed to stay. Even if
approved by the Taliban leadership, this would be anathema to the masses
of Taliban fighters.
2- The Taliban would have to denounce terrorism and violent extremism. That’s rhetorical, not a problem.
3- There will be a scheme to monitor the so-called truce while
different warring Afghan factions discuss the future, what the US State
Dept. describes as “intra-Afghan negotiations.” Culturally, as we’ll see
later, Afghans of different ethnic backgrounds will have a tremendously
hard time monitoring their own warring.
4- The CIA would be allowed to do business in Taliban-controlled
areas. That’s an even more hardcore anathema. Everyone familiar with
post-9/11 Afghanistan knows that the prime reason for CIA business is
the heroin rat line that finances Langley’s black ops, as I exposed in 2017.”
On the other hand the Taliban probably aren’t fools. Maybe.
The Taliban will nod and keep fighting until the US is exhausted. For the Afghans 18 years is a spit in the bucket. For Americans it’s an extremely long war. Time continuum is not the same in the Afghan culture as it is in the Western culture. In Afghanistan ‘immediate gratification’ is an unknown concept and patience is a virtue. They can and will outlast the Americans come what may.
Agreed.
However, its not exactly the Americans alone in Afghanistan, either. The Anglo-zionist movement, for example, also has deep roots beyond its expression in modern America and the West.
That’s actually the danger to America in the Long War; in the great picture, they are a useful but expendable warhorse.
The various geopolitical agendas attached to U.S. power, including her domestic factions, will prioritize their own endurance.
I agree with you that there are forces behind a longer than usual war in Afghanistan. Even the MIC and the CIA and those mining concerns trying to exploit the rare earth metals of Afganistan will find their adventure increasingly tiring as time grinds on.
The loss of life and treasure will erode support even more as months drift on. Cheers.
Too bad we will never see the dark books.
The ratio of (officially) unaccounted heroin profits/pirated resources to seed capital from the U.S. treasury over time would be absolutely critical in establishing the true worth of the Afghan adventure.
My friend, maybe it’s better that we don’t know the sordid details as my sleep is interrupted enough with unscheduled pit stops. I am sure, however, that these details will eventually surface, in any case, as some brave investigative journalist will dig up these nuggets of sordidness.
Not a bad point, even though the kind of cash accounting info I’m after is usually quite sanitized and just numbers
Also, math can be very sleep inducing….
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/war/
We know the heroin industry is estimated to be worth ~ $US 500 billion a year, and 90% of that comes from Afghanistan. We know the 9/11 wars have cost $US 5 trillion over twenty years.
It seems, a profit must be being turned that pays for Western illicit ops; we don’t need to know the ops, just the dark profits over official inputs.
https://www.talkingdrugs.org/report-global-illegal-drug-trade-valued-at-around-half-a-trillion-dollars
In order to begin to be profitable, the U.S. in Afghanistan must over 20 years average above the official seed money of ~$US 250 billion yearly (averaged over 20 years).
At 90% of a half-trillion global trade, Afghanistan’s heroin trade could be worth up to ~$US 450 billion yearly. The global trade in heroin obviously fluctuated over time, though it seems the half-trillion number seems to have been estimated 20 years ago as well.
[Whaterver] That suggests an average profit over 20 years of ~$US 200 billion yearly, all going to and into black ops.
The U.S. military budget in 2019 was $US 716 billion. Black ops as a service is worth more than any one of the official services (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force) assuming costs are divided evenly between branches (which they are not, but certainly puts a perspective on things).
Maybe in a hundred years, when the topic isn’t so fatally hot, this era’s foray into imperialism can be re-examined with more science than politics.
However, even a rough paper napkin calculation suggests Afghanistan is worth $US 200 billion in dark money, before whatever overhead for dark networks of processing and distribution, and losses to competition and uh, corruption.
Your knowledge of this dark business is amazing, Brockland and frightening as well. The sum of profits for covert ops from Afghanistan could be a little less than the $200B though from the source you gave:
[https://www.tal
kingdrugs.org/report-global-illegal-drug-trade-valued-at-around-half-a-trillion-dollars]
From Table A, assuming the Afghan share is in opiates only, the inferred profit is still enormous for a CIA that has an operational budget of around $25B
Yeah, sorry, got a little excited with the big numbers.
Since the CIA is into all of it, seems I jumped with the biggest number out of context as the heroin trade rather than the entire estimated drug trade being half a trillion..
I can’t find some links anymore to backcheck what I think I read; $US 500 billion sounded right… but that’s all. Probably misremembered; the links I did find, indicated the trade was below $US billion yearly.
Table A would make the Afghan take around $US 67.5 billion to ~$US 118.8 billion annually, ~$US 31 billion short of the break-even point of ~$US 250 billion averaged over time.
That would make the Afghan war a unicorn op losing at best an average of $US 31 billion yearly over 20 years.
Possibly, the profits were there early in the restart of the Afghan trade, which the Taliban had shut down as ‘unIslamic’ in 2001. The advantage has surely dissipated over time as the Taliban got better at the game.
However, since that money stays with the Deep State, its still free money they wouldn’t get otherwise, plus the priceless intel derived from having inside track on production and distribution networks in all countries using Afghan heroin, and damage to rival nations (such as Russia) using Afghan heroin.
Still, it would be interesting to know something closer to the real numbers, and not making admittedly careless guesstimates based on professional statistical guesses from incomplete data.
No need to apologise, buddy. Even at the revised figure, these are whopping numbers.
These numbers provoke another pertinent question you might consider answering: is the US deep state using that money for clandestine operations or is a lot of these funds ends up enriching the people involved in this quasi legal drug pipeline? Any thoughts?
Both; common sense suggests a drug ratline from informant farmers through processing to distribution and money laundering are by default clandestine ops; no reason for all that to be all private sector.
High profile busts of cocaine kingpins or bombing of Taliban drug labs is more like weeding the competition than actual crimefighting,
Contacts in the criminal underworld are much easier to come by as the dominant player in that underworld.
There’s no shortage of real news exposes about how deeply involved the CIA, for example, is involved in drug running. At the same time the activity is never stopped, and, the CIA likely has competition from the other Alphabet agencies.
A lot of wannabe Tony Sopranos probably aren’t fully private mafia but quasi-independent Alphabet Agency stringers.
Some leading members of the Deep State look to Star Trek (as Star Trek’s Section 31) the way an earlier generation were inspired to be doctors, engineers or scientists. They can’t stop bragging about the glory of deep insiderism.
https://americablog.com/2013/09/nsa-outrage-star-trek-bridge.html
https://trekmovie.com/2019/01/14/breaking-cbs-announces-star-trek-series-focusing-on-section-31-starring-michelle-yeoh/
Probably not an efficient way of keeping the white economy healthy and strong. Eventually the bad guys kind of overrun the place and the white economy crashes.
COVID-19, wasn’t about a virus. Its probably more about shadow economies clashing..
Thank you, Brockland, for the great answer that also ties in the COVID-19 outbreak, answering why and why now. The link to americablog.com is great and the story of the StarTrek set in The NSA office is a pathetic indication of the childish mindset of these career officers.
“Thankfully, we finally have a Commander-in-Chief in President Trump,” McKnight said, “with the courage to stand up to the Chicken Hawk Cheneys and the military industrial complex that General Eisenhower warned us about, who’s trying to end these ridiculous, endless, bankrupting wars and finally bring our troops home.”
Seriously? He’s feeding the MIC. He already vetoed the bill on the Yemen war and scoffed at anything limiting him in Iran. His sanctions have destroyed thousands upon thousands of lives and he wants to start a space force. He also caused needless lives to be lost in Afghanistan when he abruptly ended the previous peace initiative in September. Yeah, lets all rejoice if this ever comes to fruition but lets not get carried away as if this is a portend of things to come. There is an election coming up and Trump doesn’t want to leave the throne.
Still waiting for a single troop to come home below the deployments when he came in. Even one. Oh, I see, they are scheduled to arrive after the next election…..what a bunch of bs, trumpU much ?
Late last year, Esper said he would be willing to reduce troop levels even if no deal could be made with the Taliban.
“I would like to do that because what I want to do is reallocate forces to” the Asia-Pacific region, he said at the Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum in December. He said he wants to do the same thing in the Mideast, Africa and Europe.
“All of these places where I can free up troops where I could either bring them home to allow them to rest and refit and retrain or/and then reallocate them (to the Asia-Pacific region) to compete with the Chinese, to reassure our allies, to conduct exercises and training,” he said.
World wide war, especially with the new Space Force and “usable nukes” are just the thing to bring peace to the world. What a great “Defense Secretary” we have.
As if Liz Cheney could care what the US population wants!
Yet in 2016 she got more votes from Republicans than Trump did…. Odd almost as if the only thing that actually mattered too Republican voters was that a candidate had an R next to their name.
Don’t believe it until you see the white of their eyes.
The spawn of the warmongering 5-time draft dodger wants others to die and get maimed for life so that her inheritance can grow. Pathetic.