Chris Hedges: The Collective Suicide Machine

The return of the Taliban to power will be one more signpost of the end of the American empire — and nobody will be held accountable.

Chris Hedges
By Chris Hedges
Folly of Empire Feature photo

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY (Scheerpost) — The debacle in Afghanistan, which will unravel into chaos with lightning speed over the next few weeks and ensure the return of the Taliban to power, is one more signpost of the end of the American empire. The two decades of combat, the one trillion dollars we spent, the 100,000 troops deployed to subdue

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Geopolitics, Profit, and Poppies: How the CIA Turned Afghanistan into a Failed Narco-State

The war in Afghanistan has looked a lot like the war on drugs in Latin America and previous colonial campaigns in Asia, with a rapid militarization of the area and the empowerment of pliant local elites.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
CIA Afghanistan Drug trade Feature photo

AFGHANISTAN -- The COVID-19 pandemic has been a death knell to so many industries in Afghanistan. Charities and aid agencies have even warned that the economic dislocation could spark widespread famine. But one sector is still booming: the illicit opium trade. Last year saw Afghan opium poppy cultivation grow by over a third while counter-narcotics

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How Joe Biden Plans to Make The American Empire Great Again

Behind his rhetoric, Joe Biden will seek nothing less than global supremacy, escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of humanity, what he calls “decency” and “normalcy.”

Dan Cohen
By Dan Cohen
Joe Biden Foreign Policy Feature photo

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America’s reputation. While Donald Trump called to make America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the

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Oregon Can’t Fight Wildfires Because Its Helicopters Were Sent To Afghanistan

Many of Oregon’s largest firefighting aircraft are not available because the Department of Defense has sent them to Afghanistan to fight in the 20-year-old war.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
Oregon Wildfires Feature photo

More than half a million Oregonians have been forced to flee their homes, as wildfires continue to ravage the West Coast of the United States. Amid record-breaking temperatures, the wildfires, which have charred one million acres of land, have caused the sky to turn a terrifying shade of red, with many comparing it to Mars, hell, or the apocalypse.

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Lee Camp: How the Media Used the Bounty Scandal to Stop the ‘Threat’ of Peace in Afghanistan

Peace seems to have exceedingly, ridiculously, laughably bad timing, this latest time in Afghanistan, says Lee Camp.

Lee Camp
By Lee Camp
Afghanistan Peace Feature photo

This is not a column defending Donald Trump. Across my career, I have said more positive words about the scolex family of intestinal tapeworms than I have said about Donald Trump. (Scolex have been shown to read more.) No, this is a column about context. When The New York Times reports anonymous sources from the intelligence community say

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How the New US-Afghanistan Peace Deal Rekindled a “Business Friendly Taliban”

America’s relationship with the Taliban has always been determined by how useful they are at advancing US interests in the region and the Trump administration’s recent efforts to make “peace” with the group are no exception.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
US Taliban Peace Deal Feature photo

President Trump, who is up for re-election this year, has added another “peace” deal to his credentials, a deal that the president, his re-election campaign and his supporters have promoted as proof that Trump is willing and able to resist the U.S. foreign policy establishment and its ceaseless push to keep the U.S. embroiled in “forever

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