Afghanistan (US Imperialism)

Golden Crescent - Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan comprise what is referred to as the Golden crescent, which surpassed the Golden Triangle in heroin production in 2002.

Operation Cyclone

In Operation Cyclone, devised by national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and led by Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson, the Golden Crescent had been utilized for the Mujaheddin (the good guys from Rambo 3) to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

One of these Mujaheddin groups was a group called Al-Qaeda, which means the base. They would later be supported, along-side ISIS, by the US to overthrow Assad in Syria. Riggs bank, which was used by Saudi financiers to launder money to 9/11 hijackers, was previously used by the US to pay the Mujaheddin.

The Mujaheddin were funded with drug proceeds, with the US helping to transporting opium to refineries in Pakistan. It is estimated that the output made up one half of all heroin entering the US at that time, with US officials admitting in 1993 that they had failed to take action because their allies relied on the proceeds.

Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, convicted of responsibility for the first attack on the World Trade Center, helped the CIA establish contacts with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who helped them fight the Soviets. In 1993, Hekmatyar became prime minister of the country, serving under the new president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, only to form an alliance with Abdul Rashid Dostum, laying siege to Kabul and killing 4,000 residents.

Hekmatyar and Rabbani reconciled in 1995, alongside Minister of Defense, Ahmed Shah Massoud, whose troops systematically raped and killed members of the Shi’ite Hazzara community in Kabul.

The death of nine minibus passengers in an explosion near Kandahar in 2003 was attributed to Hekmatyar's military arm, Hezb-i-Islami.

American invasion

The Taliban took over in 1996, banning opium production in 2000, resulting in a 94% decrease worldwide. This lasted for about a year, before the American invasion toppled the Taliban, restoring opium production, with the help of the Northern Alliance, made up of warlords and drug cartels, some of whom enjoy raping boys.

In Afghanistan, bacha bazi (literal translation: "boy play") is a practice where prepubescent boys are sold into sexual slavery. Military commanders, former warlords and rich businessmen treat them boys like concubines, forcing them to dance before sodomizing them. Like Opium, this too had been banned under the Taliban.

"At night we can hear them screaming, but we're not allowed to do anything about it," the Marine's father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. "My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it's their culture." After being told he would be sent home early, Greg Buckly was shot dead by an Afghan trainee who yelled: ''I just did jihad''.

Another soldier, Green beret, Charles Martland, struck a US allied commander for kidnapping and raping a local boy and beating his mother for seeking help from the Americans. Martland ended up being discharged and permanently removed from Afghanistan.

During this US occupation, Afghanistan was so dependent on opium that it was referred to as a narco-state, producing more than 90% of the illicit heroin globally.

Kunduz hospital airstrike - In 2015, a US gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Center, operated by Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz. 42 were killed and over 30 were injured.

That same year, a British NGO presented some of Afghan women with Marcel Duchamp's 1917 conceptual art-piece, Fountain, which is an upside-down urinal signed with is name; this was showcased as a form of cultural exchange from the West.

Paramilitary units of the Afghan Intelligence Service, trained by the CIA, embarked on a terror campaign across the country. 

In late 2018, Unit 01 entered a madrasa (school for young children) and summarily executed 12 boys; in May of 2019 they killed 6 children and dumped them into an irrigation ditch; in June, they threw grenades and shoot up another school, killing 9. Witnesses say they saw Americans with them. Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan's former national security advisor: ''01 is a unit that operates, as you know, in partnership with the CIA.''

'A war for women's rights' - The government of President Hamid Karzai, installed by the US, presided over the deterioration of women's rights, and in some instances actively promoted taking them away. Karzai signed a law that legalized rape in marriage.

Afghan feminist Malalai Joya writes in her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: "It was dust in the eyes of the world... The United States has tried to justify its occupation with rhetoric about "liberating" Afghan women, but we remain caged in our country, without access to justice and still ruled by women-hating criminals. Fundamentalists still preach that "a woman should be in her house or in the grave." In most places, it is still not safe for a woman to appear in public uncovered, or to walk on the street without a male relative. Girls are sold into marriage. Rape goes unpunished.''

Joya was denied a visa to enter the US for a speaking tour to promote her book.

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By: Otto Heckel