A few days ago a man who was a close associate of Osama bin Laden, Amin-ul-Haq, arrived in Afghanistan to have his hand kissed by adoring Afghans.
What does this say about the environment the Americans have presided over for the last twenty years?
The collapse of the Afghan Army that the USA, UK and others trained, armed and financed for the last twenty years speaks volumes also.
Then there was the speedy exit of the Afghan president, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
A house of cards has fallen. Paper tigers have been burned. The dogs of war have left, tails between their legs.
What does it all mean?
You have to go back to 2001 and the fevered atmosphere after 9/11 for the answers.
Something had to be done.
No political superstructure can survive the humiliation and rage felt on that day without the powers-that-be beating their breasts, determined to prove they are not weak or vulnerable by striking back.
No real consideration of what a truly effective strategy might be in response to events of that day appears to have been considered. Any peacemakers, negotiators and diplomats still in place must surely have known that their services were no longer required.
The Warhawks were now fully in command. George ‘Dubya’ Bush was the perfect malleable foil for their long-held conclusions regarding the USA’s exceptionality and ability to use threats and brute force to get its way. It was to be the New American Century after all and the ‘Pearl Harbour Event’ they had hoped for had arrived.
Anyone casting any doubt on the project they or their newly strung puppets now had in mind was easy meat, a few words of condemnation directed at them as lily-livered traitors would suffice to see them neutralized. No doubt most if not all of them saw the way the wind was blowing and remained totally silent. The USA was going to prove just how powerful it was and nothing approaching logic or common sense was going to get in its way.
The atmosphere prevailing at that time excluded all those who deigned even obliquely to wonder if the knee-jerk response to violence and the jingoistic fervour that accompanied were advisable. These were consigned to the outer darkness and labelled in the files kept at that time as possible candidates for a terrorist sleeper cell. At best they were collaborators acting for the enemy.
Those who were around at the time had the example of the French to judge by. The French joined Russia and China in resisting the rush to war against Iraq and warning of dire consequences. Their reward? To have ‘French Fries’ renamed ‘Freedom Fries’ and the revival of the term, ‘Cheese-eating surrender monkeys’. Who was going to risk their career or at least their chances of promotion by speaking out in an official capacity against the war and invasion that was obviously going to take place? And the coming attack upon and invasion of Afghanistan had so much more support than even targeting Iraq.
This fever of total positivism regarding the Afghan War remained present within the U.S. military throughout the entire twenty-year tragedy and dark farce that then ensued. Reports travelling upwards had to talk of progress and gains made. Selective use was made of starting points where the period immediately afterwards had some elements in them that could be bigged up to seem impressive. The entire Afghan house of cards was built on the lies gleaned from a wholly erroneous interpretation of what was going on. It was well known to all sending reports upward that this was what the chain of command required of you, indeed demanded of you. Thousands of careers depended upon it. And masses of security analysts, think tank members, pundits and mainstream media staffers depended upon it too. A closed circle of self-created delusion was served up to the democratic dictators back in Washington and Whitehall.
A war was being fought and lost on the basis of public relations fabrications. Careers were maintained on the backs of thousands of corpses and destroyed lives. Meanwhile, the directors and board members of military industrial complex corporations were delirious with joy at the money they were making. A neat parcel of evil criminality and deception was created with a nice neat bow of mutual consent upon it.
A few did their best to warn others of what was happening in the most discreet ways possible, mindful of the disaster they could bring down upon themselves by deigning to speak the objective truth concerning how badly the war was going. And in fact, just how futile it had been from the start.
Most maintained their silence and their careers, providing what was expected. Most will without doubt fervently hope that their lack of integrity will remain unnoticed while their superiors cast blame elsewhere with further fantasies and deceptions.
Will the truth emerge of the subterfuge and fantasy that cost tens of thousands of lives and destroyed the hopes of tens of thousands more? It is extremely unlikely. Does western mainstream media want to play its part in this revelation? Again unlikely. Do the top brass of the U.S. or UK armies? Why would they? What about international courts and their judiciary? Do you detect any enthusiasm for that?
The most likely outcome is that everything will be swept under the carpet and more lies will be added, more misdirection, misinformation and some new distraction presented as soon as possible as the FINAL delusional “solution” to Afghanistan.
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