US invasion of countries based on historical imperialism, false flags: Analyst

The United States has a long history of launching false-flag invasion of other countries to advance its "imperial project," and the occupation of Afghanistan fits seamlessly with that agenda, says an American journalist.

Stephen Lendman, an author and political commentator in Chicago, made the comment in a phone interview with Press TV on Sunday, as he was addressing the issue of US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Former US President Donald Trump had announced the reduction of American forces to a 19-year low by the end of his tenure on January 20, bringing the number of boots on Afghan soil to 2,500.

US troops in Afghanistan at lowest level in 19 years: Trump

President Donald Trump says the number of US troops in Afghanistan has reached a 19-year low.

“The US imperial project is long-standing; it’s been going on for time immemorial. It literally began at least back around the mid 19th century, when the US stole half of Mexico. A lot of the western states either in whole or in part were former Mexican territory, all of California was part of Mexico plus Arizona, New Mexico, even as far north as parts of Colorado. That's what happened,” Lendman told Press TV.

“At the end of the 19th century, the Spanish-American War happened. A false flag launched it. A false flag launched the stealing of Mexican land. US false flag launched the Vietnam War. A false flag launched everything that happened after 9/11 which I've called the mother of all false flags, and that was a pretext for waging war on all nations the US doesn't control. And we know what's going on; countries have been raped and destroyed, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen,” he added.

Expounding on the issue of US imperialism, the American journalist said, “The US has no enemies; so it invents them. This is what imperialism is all about.”

“The US has had no enemies since Japan surrendered informally in September 1945,” he went on to say. “Japan wanted to surrender months before that but the US turned the country down because it was near developing, for use, atomic bombs and wanted to try them out in real-time. Literally when the war was over the US nuked two Japanese cities. We know what they are - Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the war was over. Japan was willing to give America anything it asked for with one exception, it wanted to keep its emperor. The US turned them down and then accepted the idea.”

Lendman also pointed out that the scourge of imperialism goes on both at home and abroad in new forms, saying it has accelerated since last year as one quarter of the US public has no jobs and poverty has grown exponentially.

“I expect with Biden-Harris, things will not improve, they'll get worse,” he said. “I honestly don't expect it to get better; I expect it to be much worse in the next year.”

The administration of newly-elected US President Joe Biden announced on Friday that it would review the agreement Washington reached with the Taliban last year, which is mainly focused on withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. 

Biden aide: US to review Taliban deal on withdrawal of troops

The Biden administration says it will review the peace agreement Washington reached with the Taliban last year.

The US reached a deal with the Taliban in February last year on the withdrawal of 12,000 US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for the Taliban halting their attacks on American forces.

Under the deal, the Trump’s administration promised to bring the number of US forces in Afghanistan to zero by May 2021.

A report said last year that Taliban bombings and other assaults had increased by 70 percent after the US-Taliban agreement.

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 under the pretext of the so-called war on terror, overthrowing a Taliban regime.

Since the US invasion of Afghanistan, Washington has spent more than two trillion dollars waging the war on the impoverished country, according to some estimates. Over 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed.

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