{"id":121471,"date":"2014-05-29T07:46:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-29T07:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?guid=b1c9c83841b2a1db5a3f43e37d436e5a"},"modified":"2014-05-29T07:46:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-29T07:46:00","slug":"afghanistan-permanent-us-occupation-planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/afghanistan-permanent-us-occupation-planned\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan: Permanent US Occupation Planned"},"content":{"rendered":"
Afghanistan: Permanent US Occupation Planned<\/b><\/div>\n
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by Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n
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America came to stay. Obama saying “(w)e will bring America’s longest war to a responsible end” is false. It’s his latest Big Lie.<\/div>\n
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His Monday statement<\/span><\/a> included many others. “The United States did not seek this fight,” he said.  <\/div>\n
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“We went into Afghanistan out of necessity, after our nation was attacked by al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001.”  <\/div>\n
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“We went to war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies with the strong support of the American people and their representatives in Congress; with the international community and our NATO allies; and with the Afghan people, who welcomed the opportunity of a life free from the dark tyranny of extremism.”<\/div>\n
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“(W)e have struck significant blows against al Qaeda’s leadership, we have eliminated Osama bin Laden, and we have prevented Afghanistan from being used to launch attacks against our homeland.”  <\/div>\n
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“We have also supported the Afghan people as they continue the hard work of building a democracy.” <\/div>\n
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Fact: On October 28, 2007, candidate Obama said:<\/div>\n
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“I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do.” <\/div>\n
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“I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank.”<\/div>\n
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Fact: On December 1, 2009, President Obama said:<\/div>\n
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“(A)s Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan.”  <\/div>\n
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Fact: After 18 months, “our troops will begin to come home,” he said.<\/div>\n
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Fact: They didn’t come home.<\/div>\n
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Fact: They stayed.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghanistan was Bush’s war.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s Obama’s since January 20, 2009.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Waging it had nothing to do with necessity.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It was a war of choice.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It remains one.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It shows no signs of ending.<\/div>\n
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Fact: 9\/11 was the mother of all US false flags.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It was pretext for war on terror duplicity.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It was a thinly veiled reason for maintaining Washington’s permanent war policy.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It had nothing to do with striking “significant blows against al Qaeda’s leadership.”<\/div>\n
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Fact: Or eliminating bin Laden.<\/div>\n
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Fact: In December 2001, he died naturally from kidney disease. BBC said so at the time. So did other major media reports.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghanistan poses no threat to America.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Not post-9\/11.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Not now.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Washington’s Afghanistan war had nothing to with protecting national security.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It aimed to restore the world’s largest opium supply for global heroin trafficking.<\/div>\n
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Fact: To control it.<\/div>\n
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Fact: To give Wall Street huge amounts of hot money to launder.<\/div>\n
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Fact: An estimated $1.5 trillion annually.<\/div>\n
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Fact: CIA involvement is longstanding.<\/div>\n
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Fact: So are business, financial, government and underworld figures.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Over 12 and a half years of war left millions dead.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Millions more deeply impoverished, unemployed, underemployed, without basic services and immiserated.<\/div>\n
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Fact: America deplores democracy at home and abroad.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghanistan democracy is fantasy.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Its elections are more farcical than real.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Fraud substitutes for a free and open process. <\/div>\n
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Fact: Voters have no say. <\/div>\n
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Fact: Pentagon commanders consider Afghanistan extremely important.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s strategically located.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It straddles the Middle East, South and Central Asia. <\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s in the heart of Eurasia.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s perhaps the world’s largest land-based aircraft carrier.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Occupation projects America’s military might.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It targets Russia, China, Iran, and other oil-rich Middle East states.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It advances America’s imperium. <\/div>\n
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Fact: It serves its aim for unchallenged global dominance. <\/div>\n
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Fact: It seeks control over Afghan’s untapped natural gas, oil and other mineral resources.<\/div>\n
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Fact: They’re huge.<\/div>\n
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Fact: They’re worth an estimated $1 trillion.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Perhaps more.<\/div>\n
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Fact: They include gas, iron, cobalt, gold, other minerals, and over 90% of global opium used for heroin production.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghanistan is considered the Saudi Arabia of lithium. <\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s essential for modern industry.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It’s vital for producing batteries, laptops and other key products.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghanistan is at the crossroads of vital pipeline routes.<\/div>\n
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Fact: It represents huge potential.<\/div>\n
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Fact: An economic bonanza awaits profiteers.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Afghans won’t benefit.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Surviving concerns them most.<\/div>\n
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Fact: Violence continues daily.<\/div>\n
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Don’t expect Obama’s drawdown to change things. Perhaps it won’t come. Earlier promises he made were broken.<\/div>\n
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Several times during his tenure he promised an Afghanistan exit plan. Letting Afghan forces replace US ones.<\/div>\n
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Shifting America’s mission from combat to support. Ending its longest war.<\/div>\n
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In January 2013, he said “transition is well underway. Plans are for Afghan forces to replace Americans.” <\/div>\n
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By yearend 2014, they’ll “have full responsibility for their security, and this war will come to a responsible end.”<\/div>\n
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By spring 2013, “our troops will have a different mission – training, advising, assisting Afghan forces. It will be a historic moment and another step toward full Afghan sovereignty.”<\/div>\n
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“Afghanistan (has) a long-term partner in the United States of America.”<\/div>\n
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US Special Forces and CIA elements came to stay. Search and destroy missions are prioritized.<\/div>\n
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Drone wars continue. They’re instruments of state terror. They don’t make America safer. Or Afghanistan and neighboring countries.<\/div>\n
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Mostly noncombatant civilians are killed. Few so-called high value ones. Claims otherwise are false. <\/div>\n
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All wars are based on Big Lies. They’re sold to gullible Americans. Facts are twisted to fit US policy.<\/div>\n
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It bears repeating, America came to Afghanistan to stay. Super-bases were built to accommodate US forces.<\/div>\n
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Tens of thousands of private military contractors supplement them. They’re staying. <\/div>\n
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Their skills range from technical to hired guns like Blackwater (now Academi).<\/div>\n
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Afghans deplore war. They want peace. They want America, its minions and related elements out.<\/div>\n
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They want their country back. Months earlier, an unnamed European diplomat said:<\/div>\n
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“Never in history has any superpower spent so much money, sent so many troops to a country, and had so little influence over” what followed.<\/div>\n
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As long as Afghanistan remains strategically important, US forces and influence will remain.<\/div>\n
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Troop numbers can surge any time. By presidential diktat. Pretexts are easy to invent. Fictitious enemies make it easy to do so.<\/div>\n
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Washington’s current Afghanistan troop strength numbers around 32,000. Obama announced a reduction to 9,800. By end of 2014.<\/div>\n
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To 4,000 by end of 2015, he said. Mostly in Kabul and Bagram air base. By end of 2016, an unspecified number of US forces will remain.<\/div>\n
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To protect America’s embassy, Obama said. To maintain a so-called “security assistance component.” At least 1,000 US forces will be involved, he said.<\/div>\n
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After 2014, they’ll no longer patrol Afghan “cities, towns, mountains and valleys.” So-called “cooperat(ion)” will follow. For “training” purposes.<\/div>\n
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For “anti-terrorism operations against remnants of Al Qaeda.” Since the 1980s, Al Qaeda and similar groups have been used strategically as enemies and allies. Obama didn’t explain.<\/div>\n
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Washington needs a Status of Forces (SOFA) agreement to stay. It establishes the framework under which US forces operate abroad. <\/div>\n
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The Department of Defense Technical Information Center<\/span><\/a> calls them agreements “that define the legal position of a ‘visiting’ military force deployed in the territory of a friendly state.” <\/div>\n
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They delineate “the status of visiting military forces (and) may be bilateral or multilateral.” <\/div>\n
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“Provisions pertaining to the status of visiting forces may be set forth in a separate agreement, or they may form a part of a more comprehensive agreement.” <\/div>\n
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“These provisions describe how the authorities of a visiting force may control members of that force and the amenability of the force or its member to the local law or to the authority of local officials.” <\/div>\n
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“To the extent that agreements delineate matters affecting the relations between a military force and civilian authorities and population, they may be considered as civil affairs agreements.”<\/div>\n
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Occupied countries get little choice. Pentagon officials draft provisions. They’re largely one way. <\/div>\n
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The late Chalmers Johnson explained them saying:<\/div>\n
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“America’s foreign military enclaves, though structurally, legally, and conceptually different from colonies, are themselves something like microcolonies in that they are completely beyond the jurisdiction of the occupied nation.” <\/div>\n
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“The US virtually always negotiates a ‘status of forces agreement’ (SOFA) with the ostensibly independent ‘host’ nation.”<\/div>\n
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They’re a modern day version of 19th century China’s “extraterritoriality” agreements. <\/div>\n
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They granted foreigners charged with crimes the “right” to be tried by his (or her) own government under his (or her) own national law.<\/div>\n
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Most SOFAs prevent local courts from exercising legal jurisdiction over American personnel. <\/div>\n
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Even those committing murder and rape are exempt unless US officials yield to local authorities. Usually, offenders are whisked out of countries before they ask.<\/div>\n
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America’s total number of SOFAs is unknown. Most are secret. Some are too embarrassing to reveal. <\/div>\n
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America has hundreds of known, shared, and secret bases in over 150 countries.<\/div>\n
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Johnson said they “usurp, distort, or subvert whatever institutions of democratic (or other form of) government may exist with the host society.”<\/div>\n
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Their presence assures trouble. It includes murder, rape, theft, drunken driving, and other crimes. <\/div>\n
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Locals also face unacceptable noise, pollution, environmental destruction, appropriated public land, and US personnel mindless of local laws, customs, and rights of ordinary people.<\/div>\n
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Locals lose control of their lives. They have no say. They have virtually no chance for redress. They’re most harmed when occupations are permanent.<\/div>\n
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Current US-installed Afghan president Hamid Karzai refused to sign a SOFA. Presidential runoff candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai said they’ll support one.<\/div>\n
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Afghans have no say. Or Americans. They’re tired of wars without end. Over 80% oppose them. <\/div>\n
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They want them ended. They want long overdue vital domestic issues addressed. They want them prioritized.<\/div>\n
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Wars without mercy remain official US policy. Public opposition won’t stop them. They continue. It’s the American way.<\/div>\n
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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. <\/div>\n
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His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”<\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.claritypress.com\/LendmanIII.html<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. <\/div>\n
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Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.<\/div>\n
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It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. <\/div>\n
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<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.progressiveradionetwork.com\/the-progressive-news-hour <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan: Permanent US Occupation Plannedby Stephen LendmanAmerica came to stay. Obama saying “(w)e will bring America’s longest war to a responsible end” is false. It’s his latest Big Lie.His Monday statement included many others. “The United State…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1217,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-121471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}