by Joe Siano
Four years ago, Scott
Horton of Antiwar.com
published Fool’s Errand, a scathing and meticulously documented indictment of America’s tragic misadventure in
Afghanistan.
Following 911, the United
States learned that the attack’s mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, was hiding in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was a non-state actor, responsible
for nearly 3,000 deaths and almost twice as many injured in the events of that
day.
Representative Ron Paul proposed a limited response to this aggression by introducing a bill of Marque and Reprisal in the House of Representatives on October 10, 2001. Letters of Marque and Reprisal are the Constitutionally prescribed remedy to address acts of individuals, living beyond our borders, who perpetrate acts of violence on the U.S. or its citizens.
This approach did not suit the tastes of Vice President Dick Cheney and his band of warmongers. They pushed President and George W. Bush to demand that Afghan authorities hand Bin Laden over to the U.S. or suffer the consequence of a full-scale invasion and occupation of their country.
This was a cynical and disingenuous
request made for propaganda purposes only.
Cheney’s crew knew that it was impermissible under Islamic law and
custom for the Afghan government to
surrender a brother Moslem to infidels (non-Moslems). Thus, they fabricated a rationale for a second war in the Middle East alongside the foray
in Iraq.
Horton recounts how the Afghan
government wanted no parts of Bin Laden in their country. They made multiple
offers to turn him over to the Americans discretely, thus sidestepping
religious scandal. America’s
Neo-conservative foreign policy establishment ignored these overtures so as to
continue its mission of nation-building to transform this ancient
culture into a Western-style liberal democracy.
If the capture or assassination of Bin
Laden was America’s true goal, our mission in Afghanistan should have ended in
May 2011 when he was killed by Navy Seals.
Yet the war continued for another ten years until the recent announcement
of U.S. withdrawal earlier this month and the immediate collapse of the Afghan government.
Despite his death, Bin Laden won. Once again Horton describes the brilliant rope-a-dope that Bin Laden
drew us into. Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires". The Soviets wasted ten tragic years warring in Afghanistan ultimately fleeing with their tails between their legs. Many contend that this costly war contributed heavily to the collapse of the Soviet Union
Bin Laden correctly foresaw that the
United States would sink into the same quagmire as our Russian rivals upon
commencement of hostilities in said country.
Being a much wealthier and more powerful nation than the U.S.S.R., The United States was able to spend twice the time banging its head against the
wall before our humiliating exit.
Ironically, the same Taliban that just KOed the U.S. is the same Taliban
that
we helped to organize, arm and finance during their war with the Soviets. Back then they were the good guys. We called them freedom fighters.
What motivated the United
States to enter, stay and sacrifice so much in this “fool’s errand”. Was it simply quixotic idealism? Or
stupidity? Or greed?
On the heels of the recent and swift collapse
of the Afghan government, the Inspector
General’s office issued a report, What We Need To Learn:
Lessons From Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction. According to The
Federalist this report, “found that many of the failures had to do with a
complete lack of understanding in regards to Afghan culture and the ‘social
landscapes’ of the region”.
Per the report: “Rarely did U.S.
officials have even a mediocre understanding of the environment, much less how
it was responding to U.S. interventions.”
“U.S. programs empowered malign actors and exacerbated preexisting
inequities, undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan government they were intended
to bolster”.
Again, per the Federalist story: “Ambassador
Ryan Crocker affirmed this, telling SIGAR, ‘The ultimate point of failure for
our efforts wasn’t an insurgency. It was the weight of endemic corruption.’”
Down to the bitter end, it appears
that America’s leadership class had no clue.
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
confessed surprise admitting
that the collapse “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”
Stupidity, incompetence and naivety played a big part in this disaster.
These are
the people we depend upon to protect us from “all
enemies, foreign and domestic” . Think
about that.
Greed coupled with gullibility are even
more prominent factors.
Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange,
pointed out years ago that the goal in Afghanistan "is to have an endless
war not a successful war," in order to "wash money out of the tax
bases of the United States...into the hands of the transnational security
elite."
Dwight Eisenhower, America’s last war-hero President warned in his farewell address of the corrupting power of the military-industrial complex.
“Our
military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my
predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or
Korea.
Until the
latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry.
American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as
well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national
defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of
vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are
directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military
security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This
conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is
new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political,
even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the
Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet
we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and
livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the
councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The
potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must
never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes.”
A Newsweek Op-ed declares that the, “Taliban
Didn't Win in Afghanistan, the Defense Contractors Did”. This piece references
the aforementioned Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction report
to document massive financial investment of $145 billion – largely to civilian
contractors - to rebuild Afghanistan as
well as $837 billion to actually fight the war.
The outcome:
·
1,114 allied troops
dead
·
20,666 of America’s
finest young men and women injured
·
At least 66,000
Afghan troops killed
·
48,000 Afghan
civilians killed and another 75,000 injured
·
Untold billions of
dollars in U.S. arms and military equipment left
in the hands of our enemy.
Following World War I, a war of
unprecedented bloodshed and misery, H.
C. Englebrecht and F.C. Hannigan, published Merchants
of Death, their groundbreaking expose of the International armament
industry. The Mises Institute points out that this study “was co-authored by the founder
of Human Events, the conservative weekly. So this is no left-wing
screed against profiteering. It is a careful and subtle, but still passionate,
attack on those who would use government to profit themselves at the expense of
other people's lives and property.”
The synopsis continues,” This book is
a wonderful example of what Rothbard called the ‘Old Right’ in its best form.
The book not only makes the case against the war machine; it provides a
scintillating history of war profiteering, one authoritative enough for
citation and academic study. One can see how this book had such a powerful
effect.”
And what role does naivety play in all
of this? Americans are good-hearted
people who, for the most part, want to make the world a better place. They trust their leaders to be just and moral
actors, doing what they believe to be for the greater good of America in
particular and humanity in general. This
is their fatal blind spot,
The democratic model that we have
tried to graft onto Afghanistan, Iraq and Viet Nam does not typically produce those types
of leaders.
Hans Herman Hoppe demonstrates that in
mass democracies, demagogues
rise to the top of the
political pyramid. When selecting
candidates for high office, the kingmakers of both American political parties
ask themselves: “Who is the smartest bad guy?
Who has the most demagogic talent?
Who is a magnificent briber, liar, cheater and all the rest of it.” He concludes: “Under democratic conditions,
especially on the central level, it is almost impossible that a decent person
will ever be elected to a higher rank.”
(PDF p 145)
It's one thing when corrupt local
politicians swindle money and award bogus no-bid contracts to friends. It is quite another when supposed statesmen prevail upon
the good-will of the people to enrich the death merchants while killing and
maiming thousands.
This is murder plain and simple. For this, they should be called to account.
During the heady Tea Party uprising of
2010 and 2011, many Partiers told me that they liked Ron Paul’s domestic agenda
but objected to his foreign policy. Too
bad. If America had gotten on board with
his gospel of non-interventionism and moderation in response to offenses, think
about how many lives would be saved, pain and injuries averted, and money saved
to invest in productive uses. America
and the entire world would be safer, healthier and more prosperous
Related
Articles:
Fighting
For Democracy? For Real?
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the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election.
Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong
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- Paul Simon
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