Skip to main content
NEU Senior Regional Support Officer
Afghanistan: do we really need to listen to the Humvee salesmen?
The US-British occupation was a miserable failure — but instead of looking for dodgy pundits to say it wasn’t, the press should be asking why it failed, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
General Jack Keane is currently the chairman of AM General, the Indiana-based company that makes the Humvee; in 2017 AM General got a $417 million contract to supply more Humvees for Afghanistan

THE media seem so shocked by the predictable failure of the Afghanistan occupation that they are doing their best to avoid reporting how it happened.

The Afghan government and army completely collapsed in the face of the Taliban, but the British press don’t want to examine how this house of cards was built — and instead blame everything on the final breath of wind that knocked it down.

I was struck by the self-delusion of “serious” media when listening to Radio 4 this week.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
PJ Harvey performing on the Pyramid stage, at the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Picture date: Friday June 28, 2024
Media / 23 December 2025
23 December 2025

On January 2 2014, PJ Harvey used her turn as guest editor of the Today programme to expose the realities of war, arms dealing and media complicity. The fury that followed showed how rare – and how threatening – such honesty is within Britain’s most Establishment broadcaster, says IAN SINCLAIR

ILLEGAL FROM THE START: British commandos in the south east region of Afghanistan, May 2002
Features / 20 June 2025
20 June 2025

As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion 
 

NOT ALONE: Protesters demonstrate on February 25, 2025 outsi
International Women's Day 2025 / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
The failure of international institutions, from the UN to the ICC, to hold the Taliban accountable for the brutal repression of women creates a climate of tolerance for daily crimes by the patriarchal regime, writes SHUKRIA RAHIMI