AFGHANISTAN: ITS MORE THAN JOE BIDEN'S MESS BECAUSE ITS OFFICIAL BIPARTISAN POLICY NOT TO WIN WARS AND THE POLICY REFLECTS THE MORAL DECLINE OF THE US AND THE WEST

 

"A determined Taliban, backed by parts of Pakistan's intelligence apparatus, has defeated the United States and its client state in its longest war.   Joe Biden inherited this failed two trillion dollar, time consuming enterprise.   He did what his predecessor agreed to do, what his country formally committed to do, and what he promised to do.  He ended it.

In implementing the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Biden is guilty of negligence..."

"Rough Statecraft"-Patrick Porter-"The Critic"-LINK

As the Republican "disciples" of the late John McCain tear into Joe Biden for his pathetic failure in Afghanistan the question that the Lindsey Graham's and the W Bush acolytes like Liz Cheney need to answer is:

     "What would you have done differently?"

On September 11th, 2001 President George W. Bush and his band knew the score Pakistani military intelligence was behind the Taliban but Pakistan was a nuclear power aligned with China so tough talk and bribery to allow US supplies to flow through Pakistan would turn out to be policy.

The only thing the US really did to miff Pakistan was to kill Osama Bin Laden on its territory his Al Qaeda a creation of Saudi origin (15 of 19 9/11 hijackers Saudis) and its grassroots followers and Saudi Arabia not on a US target list at all.

Saudi Arabia a business ally of the US jihadist followers of Bin Laden and Saudi-Gulf Arab money would fuel the post 9/11 policy in Libya and Syria of using jihadists against governments deemed enemies of the US in the Middle East region.

That policy fully endorsed by the late Senator John McCain and his many followers including Senator Lindsey Graham.

Afghanistan was another Vietnam with the focus on limiting casualties but there still were many.

That limiting of casualties a tough task in the Kabul airport evacuation scenario playing out.

The last war America really won was World War II.   When General Douglas MacArthur sought to win the Korean War by taking it to the Chinese Communist enemy President Harry Truman fired him.   That set the stage for the policies that played out in Vietnam and beyond to now include Afghanistan.

The names of the political parties and politicians don't matter the policy pattern has been set.    The Afghan War had no victory plan no wonder its players like the Afghans lacked the will to fight.     They weren't going to be allowed to achieve the military victory against Pakistan needed to end the war.

President Donald Trump had committed to the Afghan pullout last year but certainly did not want it to play out this way.    He took a tough negotiating stance with the Taliban.

"The Afghanistan Disaster wouldn't have happened with Trump.  The Taliban knew I would rain down fire and fury if any American interests or personnel were harmed, the likes of which have never been seen.   This is a catastrophe of historic proportions."

Donald J. Trump "Gab" August 20, 2021-LINK

Getting back to how it all started it started with leadership that was not committed to a total victory following 9/11 only another Vietnam and while we salute those who served it must be said that their lives were thrown into another Vietnam-style war with deaths, injuries and mental health issues resulting.

And what of the Western advocates of intervention in Afghanistan who decry the religious zealotry and or brutality of the Taliban yet allow and excuse the same zealotry in other Islamic nations like Saudi Arabia.

Columnist Peter Hitchens called out the British equivalent of  late John McCain and other "Neoconservatives" of the Cheney-Bush tradition in a recent column, namely  British MP Tom Tugendhat:

"Let us turn to the mysterious, fascinating ex-soldier Tom Tugendhat, who was garlanded with praise for his odd, rambling speech in Parliament on Wednesday.

I may be mistaken but he seemed to be arguing that Britain should have stayed in Afghanistan to save it from the repression of the Taliban.

Yet back in February 2018, the same Tom Tugendhat told the Abu Dhabi newspaper The National that he though very highly of the Saudi regime, perhaps the closet rival to the Taliban on Earth for repression of women, lack of freedom in general, religious intolerance and savage, steel-bladed criminal justice: 'I welcome enormously the reforms that Mohammed bin Salman has conducted recently.

He is rightly showing a vision for Saudi Arabia that sees her taking a place as a player in the global economy and I think this is incredibly positive, not just for Saudi Arabia, but for the world.'   Eight months later the Saudis murdered the dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

This incessant making of allowances for the Saudis, a central part of our foreign policy implicating every Cabinet and the Royal Family itself makes a nonsense of our pose as the enemies of repression in the Islamic world.

So I personally could do with a great deal less of the noisy piety.  Good deeds, if you can manage them, should be done in private and without bombast.  And they begin as they always have, at home."

Peter Hitchens "Mail On Sunday" Column August 21, 2021-LINK

And indeed perhaps the time has come to look at the home front instead of other "fronts" around the world to get our own house in order in the midst of the disarray of our socially liberal increasing totalitarian society that Hitchens sees in his column warning of:

                 "Our Liberal Taliban"

not just a UK phenomenon but a US one and also in Canada, Australia and New Zealand as well across the globe in fact.

Getting Our Own House In Order-Putting America First Perhaps.

For the sake of argument yes but as I consider the 20th anniversary of  9/11 I have to consider the broader issue of moral bankruptcy and the role I have played in it.

The moral bankruptcy matter deserves more attention in a future post.