By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-14/The-U-S-should-fix-its-Afghanistan-impasse-rather-than-confine-China-MqekWP8VTq/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/15/WS5df5965ba310cf3e3557e300.html
On Wednesday, the Democratic-dominated US House of Representatives passed a gargantuan $738 billion defense bill with a bipartisan support for the FY 2020 and sent the conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the Republican-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass within next seven days.
Defense bill passage whipped up the US President Donald Trump who urged Congress “don’t delay this anymore!” and stated he would “sign this historic defense legislation immediately,” which encompassed $71.5 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) including Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) in Afghanistan.
In FY2019, the ongoing OFS or war in Afghanistan was the most expensive US foreign operation that extracted $37.2 from the pockets of American taxpayers. It was also the largest US spending on its overseas military campaigns, accounting for 77% of total international operations’ spending. With some $579.4 billion spent on Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, total Afghan war reached to $755.7 billion till March 2019. The US defense bill deliberately masked these stunning facts in the Act.
NDAA also sought several reports on China’s investments abroad; transportation, energy and technology projects; growing military capabilities; ending dependency on Chinese rare earth materials and the ambition to make the country a manufacturing power by 2025.
Obscuring the massive defense spending in Afghan war and underscoring Chinese development, the Act gave the impression that US was regretting the day it invaded Afghanistan and afterward grimly violated the sovereignty of several other countries around the globe.
More than 18 years of its offensives in Afghanistan, Washington is making the world to believe that molesting Kabul was its biggest mistake, which allowed Beijing to make a trouble-free progress in the fields of economy, technology and defense. By centering on China, the Act strove to modify its future plan of action.
But Washington flunks to apprehend that, with or without US impediments, Beijing’s growth was unstoppable over the meticulous implementation of its decades-old economic reforms and opening up. The advancement China made across the multiple sectors was never intended to compete any nation and just focused to expand its economic and technological growth, lift millions of people from extreme poverty and protect its national defense.
Being an important member of the United Nations, China unconditionally supported the US war on terror following 9/11 terrorist attacks. Once terror nudged the US, not only China strongly condemned the September 11 attacks and pledged to cooperate with the global community in fighting terrorism – tens of thousands of Chinese people also visited the US embassy in Beijing and offered flowers, cards, funeral wreaths and hand-written notes to show their solidarity with the American victims.
Likewise, when the Trump administration commenced the path of political dialogue with Afghan Taliban, Beijing again welcomed the Afghan peace process and stressed on an Afghan-owned and Afghan led peace solution for a durable and stable Afghanistan. China additionally exerted deep efforts to facilitate intra-Afghan dialogue.
Washington needs to carefully revisit its hostile attitude in Afghanistan that brought about the killing of 2,300 US troops and wounding another 20,590. The fatalities of American military have not stopped even after the former US President Barrack Obama announced in December 2014 to end the longest war in the American history.
In place of targeting or profligately containing China, the US should iron out the grievances of its armed personnel who are still not sure what they were doing in nearly two decades old Afghanistan war and are increasingly wary of US officials’ “rosy” pronouncements of winning the unwinnable war.
It is irrefutable fact that despite a number of troop casualties and massive spending of around $1 trillion by a number of trusted estimates, Afghanistan war continues to grip the United States and there are no signs of ending it anytime in near future. Yet, Washington covets to keep a soldierly footprint in Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan Papers” are a caveat to Washington. It evoked the US and its establishment to reconsider its aggressive policies and corrupt practices, which drove its hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan to foster corruption and wire Kleptocracy, apart from bleeding the US economy.
Instead of resolving longstanding Afghan crisis, the Trump administration is eying to deter China’s growth from economy to defense. US president’s hardcore belief that his tariff barrage can quell and kink Beijing to Washington’s illegitimate and detrimental demands is terribly misdirected.
As Trump entered into the final year of his presidential tenure, Chinese economic data and the independent worldwide studies are demonstrative of the country’s increased pliability to absorb the US import tariffs in a prolonging trade war.
China abjures any moves, which might spark tensions between the two largest economies of the world. But if the US remains committed with its paranoid behavior to pursue the covert American agenda to hurt China on various fronts, Beijing could hit back at Washington with more burly countermeasures that would emphatically tumorous for the international peace efforts and global trade system.
*This is one of my opinion pieces (unedited) that first appeared at "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" https://news.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-14/The-U-S-should-fix-its-Afghanistan-impasse-rather-than-confine-China-MqekWP8VTq/index.html and was republished by "China Daily" http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201912/15/WS5df5965ba310cf3e3557e300.html
On Wednesday, the Democratic-dominated US House of Representatives passed a gargantuan $738 billion defense bill with a bipartisan support for the FY 2020 and sent the conference report on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the Republican-controlled Senate where it is expected to pass within next seven days.
Defense bill passage whipped up the US President Donald Trump who urged Congress “don’t delay this anymore!” and stated he would “sign this historic defense legislation immediately,” which encompassed $71.5 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) including Operation Freedom’s Sentinel (OFS) in Afghanistan.
In FY2019, the ongoing OFS or war in Afghanistan was the most expensive US foreign operation that extracted $37.2 from the pockets of American taxpayers. It was also the largest US spending on its overseas military campaigns, accounting for 77% of total international operations’ spending. With some $579.4 billion spent on Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, total Afghan war reached to $755.7 billion till March 2019. The US defense bill deliberately masked these stunning facts in the Act.
NDAA also sought several reports on China’s investments abroad; transportation, energy and technology projects; growing military capabilities; ending dependency on Chinese rare earth materials and the ambition to make the country a manufacturing power by 2025.
Obscuring the massive defense spending in Afghan war and underscoring Chinese development, the Act gave the impression that US was regretting the day it invaded Afghanistan and afterward grimly violated the sovereignty of several other countries around the globe.
More than 18 years of its offensives in Afghanistan, Washington is making the world to believe that molesting Kabul was its biggest mistake, which allowed Beijing to make a trouble-free progress in the fields of economy, technology and defense. By centering on China, the Act strove to modify its future plan of action.
But Washington flunks to apprehend that, with or without US impediments, Beijing’s growth was unstoppable over the meticulous implementation of its decades-old economic reforms and opening up. The advancement China made across the multiple sectors was never intended to compete any nation and just focused to expand its economic and technological growth, lift millions of people from extreme poverty and protect its national defense.
Being an important member of the United Nations, China unconditionally supported the US war on terror following 9/11 terrorist attacks. Once terror nudged the US, not only China strongly condemned the September 11 attacks and pledged to cooperate with the global community in fighting terrorism – tens of thousands of Chinese people also visited the US embassy in Beijing and offered flowers, cards, funeral wreaths and hand-written notes to show their solidarity with the American victims.
Likewise, when the Trump administration commenced the path of political dialogue with Afghan Taliban, Beijing again welcomed the Afghan peace process and stressed on an Afghan-owned and Afghan led peace solution for a durable and stable Afghanistan. China additionally exerted deep efforts to facilitate intra-Afghan dialogue.
Washington needs to carefully revisit its hostile attitude in Afghanistan that brought about the killing of 2,300 US troops and wounding another 20,590. The fatalities of American military have not stopped even after the former US President Barrack Obama announced in December 2014 to end the longest war in the American history.
In place of targeting or profligately containing China, the US should iron out the grievances of its armed personnel who are still not sure what they were doing in nearly two decades old Afghanistan war and are increasingly wary of US officials’ “rosy” pronouncements of winning the unwinnable war.
It is irrefutable fact that despite a number of troop casualties and massive spending of around $1 trillion by a number of trusted estimates, Afghanistan war continues to grip the United States and there are no signs of ending it anytime in near future. Yet, Washington covets to keep a soldierly footprint in Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan Papers” are a caveat to Washington. It evoked the US and its establishment to reconsider its aggressive policies and corrupt practices, which drove its hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan to foster corruption and wire Kleptocracy, apart from bleeding the US economy.
Instead of resolving longstanding Afghan crisis, the Trump administration is eying to deter China’s growth from economy to defense. US president’s hardcore belief that his tariff barrage can quell and kink Beijing to Washington’s illegitimate and detrimental demands is terribly misdirected.
As Trump entered into the final year of his presidential tenure, Chinese economic data and the independent worldwide studies are demonstrative of the country’s increased pliability to absorb the US import tariffs in a prolonging trade war.
China abjures any moves, which might spark tensions between the two largest economies of the world. But if the US remains committed with its paranoid behavior to pursue the covert American agenda to hurt China on various fronts, Beijing could hit back at Washington with more burly countermeasures that would emphatically tumorous for the international peace efforts and global trade system.