Anyone who thinks what we’re doing to Afghanistan is uniquely cruel has not been paying attention over the last few decades. We did something very similar to Vietnam after that endless war ended. We sanctioned the government, denied them aid, blocked others from trading with them, and so on. That lasted decades, and I have no doubt that, given the prevailing political mood, the Afghan strangulation might last years, at least.

What the hell is the point of this policy? We bled rural Afghanistan for twenty years. Every family lost someone to our bombing runs, drone strikes, or night raids. Sniveling hacks like Lindsey Graham seem satisfied that all this killing has accomplished something, but he’s wrong, as usual, unless the point was to make some people a lot of money. As we sit around grousing incoherently about retail terrorism, a million people are on the brink of starvation, and we won’t even let them have their own damn money.

Keeping the creep-asses happy

I don’t imagine that our leaders actually care that much about people in other countries. They often pretend to care one way or the other to please some domestic constituency. For instance, it’s hard to find a politician willing to say something good about Cuba, or Venezuela, or some other official enemy. It’s not because they’re official enemies – on the contrary, they’re official enemies because our politicians don’t want to say anything good about them.

If I were to assume the best about Biden, I would guess that he won’t agree to free up Afghan reserves held in this country because he doesn’t want to be criticized for appearing to support the Taliban. I’m sure he can hear the attack ads in the back of his mind – Biden gave money to the Taliban! He supports terrorists! Not unlikely, though the right wing is going to say that anyway, regardless of what he does. So maybe a million kids need to die so that he can avoid some amount of criticism. That’s the best case.

For reasons of state

What’s the worst case? That they’re cravenly putting people’s lives at risk for some perceived gain. It’s kind of the same thing, except maybe more actively evil. Our leaders are well-practiced at standing by and folding their arms while thousands die. Look at the global COVID pandemic – we could have taken steps to tamp down the virus all around the world, thereby saving maybe hundreds of thousands of lives. But we didn’t because, well, we value free markets and private property over all other things. Even people.

The Lindsey Grahams of the world affect to be afraid that, if we don’t kill them over there, they’ll find some way to kill us over here. From what I’ve heard of the rural experience in Afghanistan over the last twenty years, I would guess that we are now in more danger from angry Afghans than we ever would have been had we decided not to invade. So, either the Senator is an imbecile or maybe he just doesn’t care that we’re making people bitter enough that they’ll want to get back at us one day. (My guess is that, by then, Graham will be long gone.)

Self-licking ice cream bomb

There is, of course, a financial incentive. The Pentagon budget is a tremendous bonanza for defense contractors. Untold fortunes have been made off of these massive, multi trillion-dollar budgets. Because institutions have a tendency to perpetuate themselves, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our global war on terror is likely to keep rolling and rolling, regardless of success or failure.

The machine is doing exactly what it’s built to do. No, it’s not keeping us safe – that’s not what it’s built for. It is making people rich, though, and so by that standard, our foreign policy is a screaming success.

luv u,

jp