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The next time we’re dumb enough to attempt to police the world, let’s hope we’re smart enough to do it from the air. Lazy, crazy, and hazy cultures are the last place we should be sacrificing our youth with boots on the ground. Fourteen thousand dead and wounded is an unconscionable price for military adventurism in Afghanistan.
Vanity kings masquerading as America’s elected representatives could not have found better portals into hell than Afghanistan and Iraq. Like most of Africa and the Middle-East, both are dominated by tribal law and religious zealotry over the rule of law and reason. Attempting to tame these regions with force, bribery, and democracy fantasies mirrors trying to cool a hot tub with ice cubes.
It costs eight-hundred dollars a gallon to fuel an out-posted Humvee in Afghanistan. Transport costs, bribes to our allies, and theft by those same allies makes OPEC look like our good buddies. That twenty-thousand fill-up figure, and the half-trillion in borrowed dollars we’ve thus invested, radically affirms the folly of our relationship with this Islamic paradise.
In cesspools of cultural corruption, cooperation is always a temporary thing. Fear, hidden loyalties, and political power interests insure short-lived alliance with America’s interests. The Afghan majority will use our troops and money for their reasons, not ours, and then throw away fidelity like an empty beer can.
The only thing that’s ever unified Afghanis has been the opportunity to fight outsiders – even those offering a helping hand.
What makes this entanglement especially tragic is that we’ve funded it with tomorrow’s defense dollars. China’s despotic leadership is smiling at this short-sighted exercise in self-destruction.
Those who’ve served in Afghanistan merit respect. As with an earlier misguided political action, Vietnam, they can only answer for their individual contribution. Unlike the politicians who sacrificed them, and command leadership without the courage to protect them with honest outcome projections, their service has been remarkable.
Afghanistan is like a salvaged car flooded by New Orleans’ broken levees. No matter how much we clean, wax, and service that vehicle, the salt will corrode all attempts at recovery.
Our troop draw down should be prompt and purposeful. Any continuing efforts should rely predominantly on technology and airpower. We’re still going to lose and so will the Afghan people. Man may be created equal, but cultures aren’t. Rather than uplift theirs, we’ve done great collateral damage to ours.
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