I hate being wrong about something. I guess it's because it happens so seldom. Whenever we, along with some help from our NATO allies, went into Afghanistan to help liberate the people there from the dreaded Taliban, I was all for it. I thought to myself, "Self, this is a great and glorious campaign that will drive out the enemies of all things decent and make right all the wrongs that exist in that country and elevate it to democratic representation for all....lifting that country up as a beacon of freedom, justice and equality." (Not really)
The U.S. has perfected the art of winning the 'hearts and minds' of the people in countries where we send our military. It worked perfectly in Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq and others that are too many to list. The tried and true method of throwing billions and billions of dollars at foreign policy problems has worked every time. Sending our warriors in to be policemen...though they are trained to kill, destroy and conquer....is a great testament to our benevolence.
The Afghan women were treated terribly by the Taliban, but we have opened up schools for girls and clinics for pregnant women (Afghanistan is in the top five for the worst infant mortality rate in the world), and led them out of the dark ages so the men of the country can see the good and decent aspects of our culture into theirs....which has been chiseled in stone over the last 1500 years.
Now that our job is complete, and we can glad-hand and back-slap each other for the success of our efforts, the soldiers are gearing down to come home with a hearty MISSION ACCOMPLISHED to greet them when they return.
Yes, the Afghans are so grateful for our 10 year plus sacrifice of the blood of our men and women, that one of the mullahs passed an edict the other day that Karzai's government will not rescind. That being, no female may leave their home to do....anything...without a male relative to accompany her. The burqua is making a comeback as the style of choice of all women there. The schools are being shut down and women's fingers are being cut off if they have nail varnish on. If they go to the doctor, a male relative must be present at the examination to hear every...word...she...says. One of the 'holy' men has even said that if the government tries to interfere with the fatwah, then there will be JIHAD!!!!!
I don't know about you, but I just don't get it. (tongue in cheek) Instead of poppies, we taught them to grow wheat...which brings in one penny for every dollar they can make off heroin and opium. We taught them how to build a better infrastructure to help their people....which is totally unimportant to them. We trained their newly found military to fight against extremists...even though they live in one of the most 'extreme' countries in the world and will not truly fight against their brothers in the faith. We sacrificed many of our sons and daughters to bring medicine, food, electricity, clean water, and political stability...which also is totally unimportant to them. In short....we failed to achieve the impossible, and we should have known going in it was impossible.
Have you looked at the history of Afghanistan? History can be a very important tool for those who wish to play Geo-political / warfare chess. Afghanistan was completely Islamicized in the 11th century and has undergone war after war after war. When Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde came through, they destroyed everything and forced the once great populace into being an agrarian society. They do not want education. They do not want medicine. They do not want an infrastructure. And, they definitely don't want infidels of any type inside their border for any reason. They are slaves to their religion and to their culture and to their present lot in life and they always will be.
The actual game plan for us should have been the following: Since they were already living in the stone age, we couldn't necessarily blow them 'back' to it. But, we could have blown them back to the time when we crawled out of the primordial sludge. We should have used Bill Clinton's strategy in Bosnia, which was to bomb them and bomb them and bomb them until they finally said, "Enough, please. Here is Osama's head. What else can we do for you?" This seemed to work in Germany during World War II. Once they had no cities, no food, no water and no medicine...they said 'uncle'.
Instead, we are now leaving and they are now reverting to what they were and what they have always been since at least the 11th century. Backward, uneducated, warlike, heroin growing, misogynistic cretins who deserve neither our money or our blood or our benevolence. When the Soviet Union invaded and began their brutal eight year occupation we helped them with Stinger missiles and other military hardware and they were able to drive them out. How did they repay us? By giving shelter to Osama Bin Laden and allowing him to plan the devastating attack on 9/11.
Our message now, as we begin to leave should be this. If you make us come back, we won't hurt you like before. We're going to hurt you bad. Really bad. And we won't help you re-build next time. We'll leave you to eat the dust and rocks and debris we leave behind. History is a great teacher. However....we never seem to learn from it. Do we?
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