![The fear of losing complete control over the narrative is frightening for the pro-Israel lobby [John Minchillo/AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/5159273c6bf34bc0afdf2fd82a963d0a_18.jpeg)
Russia Sells India an anti-Missile System of Dubious Effectiveness- A Win-Lose Contract-Russia wins $ 5 Bn, India gets a Lemon.
Russia has sold India S-400 anti-missile missile system, whose effectiveness in battlefield conditions have not been proven. Such systems are defensive toys, which costs India $5 billion. In a massive air-attack from 5th generation fighter jets, followed by a barrage of thousands of missiles, such defensive systems fail. Israel tried to use, the US manufactured THAAD system against HAMAS and HIZBULLAH Tin Can Rockets FAILED. MIRVs such as NASR, RAAD, and ABABEEL make S-400 ineffective white elephants, like the Indian use of 155 mm BOFORS GUNS in the rarified air of Kargil Heights.
North Korea’s recent and dramatic tests of long-range missiles have created a sense of urgency and vulnerability in the United States, leading to renewed calls for expanding missile defenses. The administration and Congress have approved huge funding increases for existing systems, and call for developing new types of defenses—potentially including interceptors in space.
Is this the answer? How should one think about missile defense: as a protective shield or a dangerous illusion?
Missile defenses have as long a history as missiles do, and in the late 1960s, American and Soviet scientists came to believe that a defense against long-range missiles would never be effective because the other country would build more weapons to defeat it, leading to a dangerous arms race. The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which placed strict limits on U.S. and Soviet/Russian strategic missile defenses, reflected that understanding.
President Reagan’s 1983 “Star Wars” speech challenged that idea by calling for the United States to develop a large defensive system that included orbiting interceptors. Recognized by most experts as unworkable, this expansive system was pared down over the next decade and finally shelved, although work continued on interceptor technology during the Clinton administration.
Then, in 2002, President George W. Bush abandoned the logic of the ABM Treaty, by withdrawing from it and announcing that the United States would field the first interceptors of a new Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in less than two years. To do so, the administration exempted its development from the strict “fly-before-you-buy” rules that govern all other large Pentagon projects—a step that has had dire and long-lasting consequences.
GMD remains the sole system designed to counter intercontinental ballistic missiles. Its 44 silo-based interceptors in Alaska and California are designed to be guided by space, ground and sea-based sensors to collide with an incoming warhead and destroy it with the force of impact.
Reflecting the difficulty of the task, and the haste and lack of rigor of its development, the GMD system today has an abysmal test record, even though these tests were “scripted for success” according to former Pentagon head testing official Phil Coyle.
The problems are well documented. Only about half of the 18 intercept tests since 1999 successfully destroyed their targets, and the test record has not improved with time: only two of the last five tests were successful—and GMD has still has not been tested under operationally realistic conditions. Thus, there is no evidence that the GMD 40 billion system provides a reliable defense, even against a country like North Korea.
More fundamentally, even if the reliability is improved, GMD’s prospects for providing a valid defense in the future are poor because it will face countermeasures that any country that has developed a long-range missile and a nuclear warhead could readily use to confuse or overwhelm the system.
Despite these problems, however, the administration and Congress plan to expand the system; the current budget includes funding to build 20 additional interceptors.
Given North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear-armed long-range missile, it seems reasonable to ask whether something isn’t better than nothing. That sounds plausible but does not hold up upon closer examination. The unconstrained pursuit of missile defenses can, perhaps counterintuitively, create even more significant risks.
For example, a belief that missile defense works better than it does can lead political and military leaders to adopt a more aggressive foreign policy and take more risks. U.S. officials regularly describe the system as much more capable than it has been demonstrated to be. Even President Trump stated on television last October that “We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97 per cent of the time.” Yet the testing data show there is no basis to expect interceptors to work more than 40 to 50 per cent of the time even under the most generous and optimal conditions.
Using multiple interceptors against each target can improve these odds, but it does not fundamentally change the situation; the chance of a nuclear weapon getting through would still be dangerously high. Consider an attack with five missiles. Using four interceptors against each target, each with a kill probability of 50 per cent, the odds that one warhead gets through are 28 percent—or higher, if the failure modes are not independent of each other (for example, if the guidance systems of all the interceptors are faulty in the same way).
Overestimating defense effectiveness could increase policymaker support for a pre-emptive attack against North Korea, which might then fire missiles in retaliation. It would then become clear that the system could not stop those missiles.
Missile defenses can also increase nuclear risks by blocking arms control and providing incentives for Russia and China to build more and different kinds of weapons; preventing this dynamic was a core reason for the ABM Treaty’s limits. Russia and China worry the United States may come to believe it could launch a first strike without fear of retaliation because it could shoot down any surviving missiles. This fear is exacerbated by U.S. development of conventional “counterforce” weapons that can attack Chinese and Russian nuclear weapon systems.
These concerns are not theoretical. Russia has repeatedly stated that any future arms control agreements must include limits on missile defenses and says the expansion of U.S. defenses could lead it to withdraw from the New START treaty. And on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans to field several new nuclear systems that could avoid U.S. missile defenses, including nuclear-powered nuclear-armed cruise missiles and underwater drones.
China has begun to build more long-range missiles, develop hypersonic weapons and deploy multiple warheads on its missiles, and has also discussed putting its missiles on high alert. At worst, U.S. defenses are driving developments that result in more threats and risks; at best they are providing justifications for them. The irony is that they do not provide adequate defense in any case.
Unfortunately, things are on a path to get worse. The United States is developing a ship-based interceptor that in theory could intercept strategic missiles and plans to field hundreds of them in the coming years. An influential minority in Congress has been calling for space-based missile defenses, with plans for a “space test bed” that would put dedicated weapons in orbit for the first time. Chinese and Russian military planners will not ignore these developments.
As long as nuclear-armed countries continue to believe their security relies on the ability to retaliate with nuclear weapons, missile defenses will interfere with efforts to reduce—and eventually eliminate—these weapons. Given the inherent problems with building reliable and effective missile defenses, these defenses are more a dangerous illusion than a realistic solution.
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Afghanistan: How America and NATO betrayed humanity by Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja
Posted by admin in Afghanistan Commentary on September 3rd, 2021
Afghanistan: How America and NATO betrayed humanity
Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776), one of the leading ideological architects of American Freedom noted: “Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a Government, which we might expect in a country without Government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
America and NATO Lacked Sense of Rational Thinking, Practices and They Lied
For twenty long years, American led NATO occupied Afghanistan under the guise of peace, nation-building, democracy and strategic harmony. Lacking wisdom and forbearance, America and NATO became swollen with pride and prejudice in their military power and fell into crass materialism, violence and planned destruction of Afghanistan and its political destiny. On August 16, President Biden in his speech clarified that it was not the aim of “nation-building” or “democracy” to keep our forces in Afghanistan. He acknowledged that Afghan political leaders were responsible for the turmoil and continuing societal conflicts with massive corruption and illegitimacy of the political rule as they fled the country. American leadership and allied NATO countries blame the Taliban* for the prevalent chaos and insecurity across Afghanistan. The Western news media appears biased and unprepared to recognize the new Taliban* administration as a legitimate transformational entity for peace and stability in the region. The myth of Taliban* being an extreme “Islamist”, “militant” and sometimes a “terrorist” group is kept functional in all of the recent reporting. Do the Western news media ever describe the Bush’s invasion as “Christian Crusade” or “terrorist” occupation of Afghanistan? To revisit the formative history, the Western leaders deny any reference to the pathological lies and political deception engineered by George W. Bush when he invaded Afghanistan as part of the prolonged scheme of “war on terrorism.”
Michel Meacher, former British Environment Minister under PM Blair (This War on Terrorism is Bogus) – provides reliable insight into the real reasons for the ‘War on Terrorism’. He claims that the “war on terror” is flatly superficial:
According to David Corn (Is the President a Pathological Liar? 12/2003; and the Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, 2003), Bush lied and misled the American masses about the real reasoning for the invasion of Afghanistan. Recall that it was Al-Qaeda* (the US sponsored and trained group) blamed by Bush for the 9/11 attack, not Taliban*. Afghanistan under Taliban government in 2003 had no military-political capacity to threaten America or its security in any rational context. When nations and leaders live in darkness – away from truth, they seem to lose any rational sense of direction and imagination. This happened to America and NATO under its control. No wonder, why America and NATO are fearful of the futuristic unthinkable consequences if truth is revealed to the global mankind. They invaded Afghanistan without any justification, dismantled its culture and values and tortured innocent civilians and political enemies – the Bagram Airbase tells that all.
The Talibs are the people of Afghanistan and are a political organization within the geo-political culture of Afghanistan. The Taliban* takeover of Afghanistan was politically motivated after some twenty years of struggle for power. If Talibs are dressed in their own national costumes, speak their own language and adhere to Islamic thoughts and values, it does not make them terrorist or Islamists. In all perceptive eyes and rational analysis, Taliban* is a political party, not a “terrorist” entity or an extremist “Islamists” as some Western media suggest to its public viewers. If they were terrorist or extremists, why would America and NATO and others in international community engage them in peacemaking conferences and forging relationships over the decades? In its pursuit of unbridled ambitions and global hegemonic power, America and its allies enjoin wrong thinking, wrong aims and do the wrong things as it happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.
Glenn Greenwald, a prominent American journalist and lawyer (The US Government Lied for Two Decades about Afghanistan, Information Clearing House: 8/16/2021) makes the startling remarks:
The pattern of lying was virtually identical throughout several administrations when it came to Afghanistan. In 2019, The Washington Post — obviously with a nod to the Pentagon Papers — published a report about secret documents it dubbed The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war. Under the headline AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH, The Post summarized its findings:……Year after year, U.S. generals have said in public they are making steady progress on the central plank of their strategy: to train a robust Afghan army and national police force that can defend the country without foreign help.
In the Lessons Learned interviews, however, U.S. military trainers described the Afghan security forces as incompetent, unmotivated and rife with deserters. They also accused Afghan commanders of pocketing salaries — paid by U.S. taxpayers — for tens of thousands of “ghost soldiers.” None expressed confidence that the Afghan army and police could ever fend off, much less defeat, the Taliban* on their own.
Towards Making Peaceful Future of Afghanistan under Taliban*
Taliban* has just been in Kabul for two days, and one should not expect miracles out of a systematically and politically destroyed country under NATO and American occupation for 20 years. Surely, Taliban* governance would urgently need rethinking and planning for socio-economic and political change and stability across Afghanistan. They were alleged to have mistreated women, children and other minorities in the past. Taliban* would need people of new ideas, proactive vision and planned change to avert the dark imagery of the past. Under President Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, country was entrenched in mismanagement and corruption and democracy was just a ghost of the unknown. The chaos at Kabul airport is a glimpse what went wrong under the foreign occupation and exploitation. Taliban* appear to be in control of the whole of Afghanistan and will need planned efforts and a wide range of reconciliation efforts to settle-in for viable political governance. One cannot imagine law and order to come out of nowhere in a highly chaotic situation ordained by America and NATO’s absurdity and contradictions for a long time.
Caitline Johnstone (Stop Believing that US Military Invasions had Noble Intentions, Information Clearing House: 8/16/2021) makes us believe that:
America and its belligerent allies have caused havoc humanitarian, social, economic and political conditions in Afghanistan. The war and its consequences will not end with the US sudden withdrawal but will leave imprints for generations to come – the innocent men, women and children massacred and human habitats destroyed. Should America and its allies not be held accountable by the Afghan people for all the war damages? Please see: America led-NATO forces in Afghanistan: Crimes against humanity call for accountability. Also see by Mahboob A. Khawaja – How the United States and Britain Lost the Bogus Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If mankind was looking towards ethical principles and some rational consideration to be in peace and harmony after the dreadful warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan and drone killings in Pakistan, it is utterly dismayed with the US politicians and policy makers. Time and again, they appear to be devoid of reason and any sense of humanity and accountability for their belligerent acts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Global politics is not a system of moral principles or intellectual and political values but often an absurd game – a cruel drama – a puppet show staged to appease the few bloody Draculas – a psychopath puzzle of few insane people who had nothing useful to contribute to the mankind except drudgery, deceit, lies and inborn deceptions – the net outcome of this Thinking was the bogus War on Terrorism. It is unclear what is in-waiting for the US and NATO after shamefully leaving Afghanistan without any formal agreement or surrender to the new political realties in Kabul.
History is a weapon and tyranny is tyranny, noted late historian Howard Zinn. American intransigence in Afghanistan will not be a new exciting story in history books.
Reference
New Taliban Govt, Russia, Taliban, USA & Afghanistan
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