USA and NATO staying in Afghanistan

The US-Afghanistan agreement sought by Washington, frozen for nearly a year by President Karzai’s refusal to subscribe, was signed with great fanfare in Kabul on September 30, the day after Afghanistan’s new president Ashraf Ghani was sworn in. The "Security and Defense Cooperation Agreement " – comprising, in addition to a preface and an annex, 26 items subdivided into 116 points - contains everything that Washington wanted to obtain.

On this basis, which will remain in force from 2015 to 2024 and beyond, the United States will maintain in Afghanistan after the "combat mission" formally ends on 31 December 2014, about 10,000 soldiers with the official mission to advise (read command), train, equip and support the national "security forces." Much of the US contingent will consist of special operations forces that will perform "counterterrorism missions" in Afghanistan. To this end - although not specified - use will be made of weaponized drones, helicopters and fighter-bombers taking off from land bases and aircraft carriers deployed in border areas.

US Special Forces are in effect permitted to burst into Afghan homes (a point disputed by Karzai), although formally the agreement commits the United States to act in "full respect for the protection and safety of Afghans even inside their homes.” The US military shall in essence be exempt from Afghan law and regulations, since under Article 13 Afghanistan concedes that "the United States has the exclusive right to exercise jurisdiction" over its own military who "commit any criminal or civil offense" in Afghanistan.

Article 7 of the agreement spells out that "Afghanistan hereby authorizes United States forces to exercise all rights and authorities within the agreed facilities and areas that are necessary for their use, operation, defense, or control, including the right to undertake new construction works.” In other words, the agreement allows the United States to maintain and upgrade military bases in Afghanistan.

Even though Article 7 does not specify what they are, the appendix lists, as "official points of embarkation and debarkation" of US forces, seven airbases (Bagram, Kabul, Kandahar Shendand, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Shorab) and 5 land bases (Toorkham, Spinboldak, Toorghundi, Hairatan, Sherkhan Bandar). In addition, Afghanistan authorizes the United States "to position the equipment, supplies, and materiel of United States forces within agreed facilities and areas, and at other locations as mutually agreed." In other words, the weapons and equipment needed for a large-scale regional war, such as a potential one against Iran. In exchange, the Afghan government will receive from the USA and other "donors" (including Italy) an ongoing financial aid, evaluated at 4 billion dollars annually, which like the previous one will end up largely in the pockets of the ruling caste, enriched thanks to NATO’s billions, bribes and drug trafficking.

Immediately after the US-Afghan agreement, the “NATO Status of Forces Agreement”, akin to the first, was inked. In addition to the US forces, it allows for 4-5 000 military to be kept in Afghanistan, most of them British, Germans, Italians and Turks. Thus, by continuing to spend millions of dollars taken from our citizens, Italy will remain in Afghanistan, where our air force will continue to operate with C-130 J transport planes and EC-27 electronic warfare aircraft out of the Pisa-based 46th Air Brigade, together with the 32nd Fighter Wing Predator drones from the Amendola Air Base; where the Special Forces will continue to operate even more than before, presently boosted by the advent of the unified command in Pisa.

War will thus continue to be waged in "secret", causing more casualties in Afghanistan which – situated at the crossroads between Central-South and East-West Asia - constitutes an even more important area now that the strategy of the USA and NATO is unfolding towards a new confrontation with Russia and, in the background, China.