In God’s name, Mr. President, tell your political and military aides to stop stringing along you and your countrymen on the issue of Afghanistan.
We seem to be in the midst of another “peace campaign” in Afghanistan. American are being told that U.S. forces and the Taliban are going to forego fighting for a week, and, if that bit of trickery works, peace talks will move on, perhaps for a two-week or month-long ceasefire. This procedure, Sir, could go on forever, but none of it is either honest or necessary.
The Talban long ago defeated U.S.-NATO forces. The Afghan military – on which the national government has spent enough money to fund a large domestic infrastructure program – will melt away when Western forces are gone and Afghan military personnel hurry back to their tribes and clans to help them to prepare for an inevitable civil war.
If anyone tells you, Sir, that Afghans are loyal to their national government, you can call him a liar to his face. Loyalty and unity in support of the Afghan state exists only when the country is attacked, invaded, and occupied, and, even then, both are fragile and often broken for periods of time.
When an occupation ends, this loyalty to the nation-state and Afghan unity end with it. Tribe and clan loyalty quickly regain complete domination over the Afghan political system. Loyalty to each is topped only by faith in Allah. Elections, women’s rights, Western-style rule of law, democracy, etc. are enemies of the Afghan system and its traditions and history, and any promises made to implement such things after foreign forces depart are not worth a tinkers’ damn (NB: Trusting such promises would be even more stupid than the British trusting the Chinese communists to keep hands off Hong Kong for 50 years.)
Mr. President, the foregoing facts have been available to U.S. presidents, politicians, generals, diplomats, businessmen, reporters, and academics since at least 2001. I know that because I publicly delivered the facts in a book called Through Our Enemies Eyes, and another called Imperial Hubris. This surely sounds boastful, and for that I apologize. But the truth is, Sir, those books contain nothing but commonsense informed by a knowledge of history, that of the Afghans and of our own.
The hard truth, Sir, is that U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has been an arrogant, uninformed 20-year bungle that has caused thousands of deaths, maimings, and suicides among U.S. military personnel, and has enriched U.S. companies involved in arms-making and reconstruction activities. It also has allowed crooked Afghans and Americans to steal untold billions that were designated for military and civilian operations in Afghanistan.
The worst crime of all, of course, is that neither the younger Bush nor Obama, their cabinet members, or the Congress ever intended to win the Afghan war. Neither did any of the generals who you, without any convincing proof, praise so profusely as brilliant and invincible. The main thing you hear from these generals is “there is no military solution” to the Afghan problem. The only other thing you hear from these louts – at least the retired ones who fear their corporate gravy train will be derailed – are damning words directed at you.
Since the first day of the Afghan war, Mr. President, two presidents and their generals have worked a con on the American people and their soldier-children with benefits accruing only to themselves, their corporate pals, and the makers of prosthetic devices.
Mr. President, it is time to get out of Afghanistan; indeed, far past time. The reality is that you were handed a stinking, dead pig and there is no way resuscitate it or even to dress up the corpse. The Taliban is likely to make any deal you want, and make any promises you demand, but they never will fulfill them. If the Taliban chiefs tried to do so, they would be cut down by Afghan opponents who demand the return of the same status quo ante the Taliban intends to restore.
This leaves no easy task for you, Sir, but the nature of America’s interest in Afghanistan is clear – there is none, except to get out. You are all alone on this one, Sir, as you are on many others, so you ought to treat it as just another day in hell.
Mr. President, now is the time to follow your America First instincts. The republic’s survival, Constitution, and liberties were never at risk in Afghanistan; whatever U.S. forces were fighting for in Afghanistan, it was not any those items. A thoroughly murderous, short-term (15-18 month) punitive expedition was all the U.S. ever needed to execute; indeed, it is the only kind of military operation that has ever succeeded in Afghanistan.
So, with respect, Mr. President, get after it. Order all of our people home, and stop the enormous flow of wasted taxpayer dollars that is going daily to the myriad crooks now operating in Afghanistan and among the U.S. companies that supply our forces and civil reconstruction there. You are a great promise fulfiller, Sir, and this promise needs fulfilling by Independence Day
One more thing. When you end the Afghan bungle, you will be charged with opening Afghanistan to occupation of China and/or Russia. When these accusations fly, Sir, simply acknowledge that Beijing and/or Moscow are welcome to it. There is no better place to find our enemies than where they will be floundering, thigh-deep, in the bloody, treasury-draining, and unwinnable Afghan quagmire.
