AFGHANISTAN: SOME THINGS YOU SIMPLY CANNOT SPIN

Tony Blinken is doing his hapless best. Without a shadow of a doubt, Joe Biden will do even worse than Blinken. Boris Johnson is his usual barmy British self and is issuing commands that have no chance of being acted upon.

In short, the West’s spin merchant leaders are emitting the requisite noises as best they can in a vain attempt to shore up the exploding dam that is a devalued neocon foreign policy.

The eerie notes of idiocy coming from these paper tigers now set on fire are rendered exquisitely comic due to the backdrop of the supposed might wielded by them. But few are laughing. The most appropriate response is derision. These are the avid liars who prognosticated that Afghanistan and its army were impregnable, their having honed its security services and military to a “high standard” at the cost of $billions. These same security forces and “professionally-trained troops” have just dropped their weapons, exited their vehicles and made a run for it, to the nearest border crossing or airport.

The open-mouthed horror at the lightning-fast collapse of their foreign policy in Afghanistan has the elites of the West wetting their designer diapers tonight. Memos are being speedily drawn up to serve as media hymn sheets for all and sundry to read from. A narrative to deceive the masses must be found to save whatever face is now possible. But what kind of “face” can emerge from this catastrophic loss of reputation, dignity and future influence?

The USA and UK, the two leading exponents of the ‘War on Terror’ with George ‘Dubya’ Bush and Tony ‘U.S. Poodle’ Blair should be asked the question above. While Bush may well be unintelligible Bliar at least will surely manage some kind of nausea-inducing spin, he being the main proponent of a proactive foreign policy, i.e. mass murder made legal. But overall the bigwigs on high will tend to hunker down, hands clasped on ears hoping no one notices them or asks anything until the present catastrophic debacle blows over. That, however, may take some time. Perhaps a very long time indeed.

While western elites fret, pout and run for shelter significant gains will be made by others as their twenty-year-long plan for Afghanistan dissolves and the very foe they ousted returns stronger than ever. Iran, Russia, China and others will make the running now and will be trusted far more than those in the West whose credibility is now at zero and in fact far below.

The spinning of this upending of western foreign policy will be carried out as it ever is in a part of the world that has a habit of lying on just about every geopolitical topic under the sun.

But… some things you simply cannot spin. And the crushing defeat for western foreign policy in Afghanistan is most certainly one of those things.