Defense industry-linked "study group" wants US to stay in Afghanistan
The people involved with the "Afghanistan Study Group" may have some ulterior motives for wanting to keep America's longest war going.
An overwhelming majority of both US citizens and US troops want the US to end its decades-long occupation of Afghanistan, which is why the red flags immediately began waving when I first came across a Washington Post article from 2/3/21 titled, "Experts group urges delayed US troop pullout in Afghanistan".
Similar articles have also appeared, such as:
"Study group recommends Biden delay Afghanistan withdrawal"
- The Hill, 2/3/21
"Biden should keep US troops in Afghanistan past May deadline, study group says"
- CNBC, 2/3/21
The Afghanistan Study Group (ASG) is a congressionally mandated, bipartisan panel tasked with “identifying policy recommendations that consider the implications of a peace settlement, or the failure to reach a settlement, on US policy, resources, and commitments in Afghanistan.” According to their report, the US should stay in Afghanistan to “ensure that a complete withdrawal of US troops is based not on an inflexible timeline but on all parties fulfilling their commitments, including the Taliban making good on its promises to contain terrorist groups and reduce violence against the Afghan people, and making compromises to achieve a political settlement.”
First, the narrative that the US needs to stay in Afghanistan because of “violence” not only ignores America’s overwhelming role in that violence, but also the fact that the US has recently been accused of “bombarding” houses and killing civilians in direct violation of the peace deal signed under Trump in early 2020. Second, the US has been an occupying force now for over two decades in a country where it is not wanted. Every single day the US continues to stay in Afghanistan it is committing a colossal act of aggression against the Afghan people, and responses to that act of aggression shouldn’t count as justification to stay in Afghanistan even longer; if anything, it should be a sign that it’s beyond time to leave.
But the truly discrediting factor with ASG are the people involved with it.
For example, consider ASG’s co-chair, Kelly Ayote, a former New Hampshire Senator who described the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as a “historic capitulation” and accused the White House of favoring Iran over Israel. While in office, Ayote also took hefty campaign donations from GE, Raytheon, and Boeing, and currently, she has a seat on the board of weapons manufacturer BAE Systems.
Another co-chair, retired General Joseph Dunford, sits on the board of Lockheed Martin, an appointment that coincidentally followed his vocal support for continuing to fund the F-35 program after the Pentagon had called into question numerous issues with its design and survivability in combat.
Some other members include:
Michèle Flournoy, who spent several years working for the Boston Consulting Group as the firm accrued multi-million dollar contracts with the military
Susan Gordon, who currently sits on the board of CACI, a federal contractor accused of allowing its interrogators to direct “beatings, starvation, sexual violations, sleep deprivation and other abuses” of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison
Mark Green, Executive Director for the McCain Institute, which takes funding from Raytheon, among many other corporate donors
Kimberly Kagan, wife of Frederick Kagan, who is the brother of Robert Kagan, a prominent neoconservative and founder of the Project for the New American Century, a neocon think-tank which advocated for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In late 2012, Kimberly published an article in the Washington Post titled, “Why US troops must remain in Afghanistan”, writing: “Physics and military reality dictate the minimum number of troops needed to have any US presence in Afghanistan without inviting calamities worse than the events in Benghazi, Libya. The presence of US forces in Afghanistan alone permits counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan. It’s this simple: Either we keep the necessary number of troops in Afghanistan or operations against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan cease.”
Stephen Hadley, a former Bush administration official who published a January 2020 op-ed in the Washington Post justifying Trump’s assassination of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani while arguing that the US should continue occupying Iraq. Hadley also supported US airstrikes in Syria, US intervention in Ukraine, and he is a board member at Raytheon, where he owns shares worth more than $2.4 million.
The Afghanistan Study Group is one of many projects under the umbrella of the so-called “United States Institute of Peace” - created in 1984 under Reagan. One of their more prominent projects was the Iraq Study Group, which in 2006 called for "aggressive" US diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria along with a continued presence of US forces in Iraq to provide logistical support and training for a “sustained period”. Panel co-chair James Baker noted that “for quite some time” there will be “a robust American presence both in Iraq and in the region.”
Baker’s family, according to a December 2006 NPR interview with writer Antonia Juhasz, was “heavily invested in the oil industry” along with Baker Botts, his law firm, “one of the key law firms representing oil companies across the United States and their activities in the Middle East.” Moreover, Juhasz pointed out that several members of the Iraq Study Group are representatives of the Heritage Foundation, “one of the few US organizations that point-blank called for full privatization of Iraq’s oil sector prior to the invasion of Iraq, as a stated goal of the invasion.”
In 2009, the US Institute of Peace proudly announced a new sponsor after receiving a one-million dollar donation:
“Lockheed Martin Corporation has become the premier sponsor of the United States Institute of Peace annual Dean Acheson Lecture for five years beginning in 2009. In addition to prominently recognizing the company as a sponsor in all lecture-related materials, Lockheed Martin will be included as a Founding Corporate Partner for the Institute's new National Mall headquarters and public education center campaign.”
Robert J. Stevens, then-president, chairman and CEO of Lockheed, responded in kind, saying the company is “pleased to support the work” of the US Institute of Peace, adding: “Lockheed Martin understands the importance of working to prevent conflict and promote peace as vital components of global security.”
George Orwell’s ghost is crying tears of irony.
Here we have the United States Institute of Peace, sponsored by one of the Pentagon’s top weapons suppliers, with many of its members linked to the defense industry, producing reports about how more war will bring about peace. These reports are then published uncritically in the media, with journalists never bothering to mention defense industry ties and only referring to institute members as “experts”.
Experts at the peace process? Hardly. Experts at maintaining perpetual war for financial gain? That sounds a lot more fitting.
Defense industry-linked "study group" wants US to stay in Afghanistan
Hi, I enjoy your articles related to Afghanistan, as I'm Afghan which affects my life, but I couldn't find you on Twitter. I think you use it. would you reply? thanks