Retired Army Colonel: US Will Have A Presence In Afghanistan For Another 50 Years
By Steven MacMillan
ActivistPost.com
FEBRUARY 15, 2016
Afghanistan is a geostrategic and economic prize that the West will not want to relinquish anytime soon. In an interview at the end of 2015, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell and retired US Army Colonel, Lawrence Wilkerson, outlined the realistic timescale he believes the US will be involved in Afghanistan, in addition to emphasizing the strategic importance of the country to the US. Speaking to Abby Martin on her show The Empire Files for Telesur, Wilkerson asserted that the “US presence in Afghanistan will not go away for another half-century” (from 20:05 into the interview):
The war in Afghanistan has morphed; it’s not about al-Qaeda anymore, and it’s not about the Taliban anymore. It’s about China; Russia – the soft underbelly which is mostly Muslim of Russia; about Pakistan; about Iran; about Syria; about Iraq; about whether a Kurdistan is stood up or not; and ultimately about oil, water and energy in general. And the US presence in Afghanistan, I’ll predict right now, will not go away for another half-century… And it will grow, it will not decrease.
This revelation by Wilkerson is important as the majority of the Western public continues to believe that the war in Afghanistan is predominately to do with fighting terrorism. Realistically, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan never really had anything to do with terrorism, but everything to do with geopolitics and the vast amount of economic riches the country possesses.
The Rest…HERE
