Comitato No NATO (author for Global Research) (2019): “1. The United States attacked and invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the official motivation being to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who was targeted as the instigator of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. (The official version of what took place on 9/11 does not stand up to the technical-scientific investigations carried out by independent experts.) Osama bin Laden was a well-known figure in Washington. He belonged to a wealthy Saudi family and actively collaborated with the CIA from 1979 to 1989 when it trained and armed through the ISI (the Pakistani secret service) over 100,000 mujahidin for the war against the Soviet Union. The Soviet troops fell into the “Afghan trap” (as Zbigniew Brzezinski later defined it, stating that the training and arming of the mujahidin began in July 1979, five months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan).
2. This opened a new phase in the international situation. The President of the United States was authorized to conduct a “Global War on Terrorism”, in which there were no geographical borders, conducted against an enemy who could be identified from time to time not only in as a terrorist or a presumed terrorist, but in anyone who opposed US policy and interests. President Bush described the perfect image of an enemy, interchangeable and lasting. as “an obscure enemy, hiding in the dark corners of the Earth”.
3. The real purpose of US military intervention in Afghanistan was the occupation of this area of primary strategic importance. Afghanistan is at the crossroads of the Middle East, Central Asia, South and East. In this area (in the Gulf and in the Caspian), there are large oil reserves. There are three major powers – China, Russia and India – whose strength is growing and influencing global assets. As the Pentagon had warned in the report of 30 September 2001, “there is the possibility that a military rival with a formidable resource base will emerge in Asia”.
4. In the period before 11 September 2001, there were strong signs of a rapprochement between China and Russia in Asia. Washington viewed this as a challenge to US interests at the critical moment when the United States sought to fill the void that the disintegration of the USSR had left in Central Asia. Afghanistan is in a key geostrategic position for the control of this area” (Comitato No NATO, “US and NATO attack Afghanistan and Iraq”, Global Research, 30 April 2019: https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-attack-afghanistan-iraq/5676038 ).