eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Guide to the Grand Chessboard's Pawns
https://www.corbettreport.com/your-guide-to-the-grand-chessboards-pawns/

https://link.sbstck.com/redirect/4b33bfac-f883-411c-a9bd-61381c981a13?j=eyJ1IjoiMWs2OHNjIn0.7lXxGt8kjYP_JlOI0BZFnjQ_MNRG7Eu8mKFHHqkDG9U

July 16, 2023

The observation that the great geopolitical struggle between nations is akin to a grand game of chess is hardly a novel one.

After all, Khosrau II, the ancient Sasanian king, saw the connection over 1400 years ago: "If a ruler does not understand chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?"

Or take Leo Tolstoy's conclusion, "War is like a game of chess."

And who in The Corbett Report audience could forget Zbigniew Brzezinski's infamous 1998 tome, The Grand Chessboard, in which he identified the Eurasian landmass as "the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played"?

That geopolitical strife has been so often analogized to a game of chess should hardly be surprising. After all, chess itself derives from an Indian strategy board game, chaturanga, whose pieces were modeled on the ranks of the ancient Indian army. In fact, the first modern war game was a type of chess game played on a purpose-built board made of 1,666 squares.

Given this age-old metaphor, who could doubt that the powers-that-shouldn't-be really do imagine themselves as grandmasters, moving people around like chess pieces in order to conquer this or that square on the grand chessboard? And, keeping to the logic of this twisted metaphor, it follows that if geopolitics really is a game of chess, then the people at the bottom of the power pyramid are merely pieces on that board, pawns to be sacrificed as part of a gambit in a larger battle for control of the global chessboard.

Today I will tell the story of these pawns on the chessboard and how they have been used, abused and discarded by the would-be rulers of the world.

There is perhaps no better exemplar of the chess/politics analogy than the country of Afghanistan. Conveniently situated on the main land route between Iran, Central Asia and India, Afghanistan has long been recognized as a key square on the geopolitical chessboard. For millennia, the Afghans have found themselves in the crosshairs of empires, from the Macedonians to the Mongols, the Seleucids to the Sikhs, and many others besides.

In the 19th century, British strategists came to covet this particular square of the chessboard, recognizing its utility as a buffer between the Russian Empire and the crown jewel of the British Empire: India. Britain's interest in Afghanistan led to a century-long covert proxy war in the country that pitted the Brits against the Russians in a struggle for control of that buffer nation. Known as The Great Game, this struggle resulted in not one, not two, but three wars between the British Empire and the Emirate of Afghanistan. (Spoiler: it didn't end well for the British.)

In the late 20th century, Afghanistan once again became a key battleground. This time the fighting erupted when its Soviet-backed government tried to implement a series of land and social reforms in line with their Marxist-Leninist principles, provoking a reaction from the country's conservative elements and Islamic hardliners. The US government under Jimmy Carter, hoping to draw the Soviets into a protracted guerrilla conflict like the one the Americans had faced in Vietnam, swooped in to begin covertly assisting and funding the mujahideen.

As we all know by now, that tactic was remarkably effective. The Soviet-Afghan War raged for a decade, and, by the time the dust settled, the mighty Red Army was forced to withdraw in humiliation.

The grandmasters in Washington did not get to celebrate their victory for long, however. The very same Taliban freedom fighters who had been lauded by Ronald Reagan and encouraged by Zbigniew Brzezinski—and (oh, by the way) had been covertly funded by the CIA—were now vile terrorists, unfit to occupy the square of the chessboard they had helped conquer. And so began another decade-long struggle between the by-now-demonized Taliban and the US-sponsored Northern Alliance.

With the rise of Osama bin Laden and the events of 9/11, Uncle Sam finally had the perfect excuse to move his own forces into the region and take the Afghan square on the chessboard by military force. . . . And we all saw how well that turned out.

These events have been written about and examined by many commentators and historians, but what many of these histories fail to take into account are the real pawns in this game: the Afghans themselves.

One of the most telling moments of the whole invasion and occupation of Afghanistan was when a poll of Afghans revealed that 92% of the nation's young men had never even heard of 9/11 and that they had no idea of NATO's professed reason for bombing and occupying their country. As it turns out, the Afghan people were forced to pay with their lives in a game they didn't even know they were playing.

pegw

The Corbertt Report has a low degree of creditablity, with conspiracy keval as tin foil hat and p***********e leval moderate, by Media Bias.

manning5 Loc: Richmond, VA

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okie don

Opium🤔

kemmer

Eagleye and his eternal quest for simple, easy to understand concepts and solutions.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

"The Corbertt Report has a low degree of creditablity, with conspiracy keval as tin foil hat and p***********e leval moderate, by Media Bias." - pegw
LOL!!!

pegw; Thank you for confirming the accuracy of the Corbett Report.
You have done this forum a service.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

kemmer; Thank you for confirming the accuracy of the Corbett Report.
You have done this forum another service.

LogicallyRight Loc: Chicago

Corbertt
creditablity,
keval What is that?
leval
Usual peg incompetence

kemmer

Hahaha…. You’re the kind of guy who thinks it’s a compliment when I say, “Nice tie!”. 🙄

Michael Roy Loc: North of Amarillo

You have to understand what we’re dealing with here. In these times right is wrong up is down everything is inside out.

nonalien1 Loc: Mojave Desert

And as a side note ; One in five afghanies will lose a limb because of all the unexploded ordinance left by Russia and the US.. nice chess board.

pegw

Looks like the Taliban is too busy taking woman's rights away to clear mine fields.

nonalien1 Loc: Mojave Desert

Maybe they will use the women to clear the fields.

kemmer

Like Iran used freed prisoners during its war with Iraq.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

"Hahaha…. You’re the kind of guy who thinks it’s a compliment when I say, “Nice tie!”. " - kemmer
Sooo kemee!
You no understand sarcasm?!