AFGHANISTAN….LOOKING FOR A DIGNIFIED EXIT
(….from a cesspool of nation-building)

Ten years ago we charged into Afghanistan like a raging wounded lion, bashing and slashing at anything remotely connected to the Taliban or al Queda. We were there in a revengeful mood to retaliate for 9/11. At the time almost everyone seemed to understand why we were there (let’s face it…. revenge …. is universally acknowledged and justified as a motive for reaction against a wrongful act).

And the Taliban government at the time, besides its extreme Islamist rule over its people, was also considered a willful host of the al Queda nutcases who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks against us, and an active supporting accomplice of these besides. When it refused to turn over Bin Laden and his circle, thinking we were too weak-kneed to do anything about it, we quickly disabused it of that viewpoint, attacking it with overwhelming ferocity and firepower, running it not only out of town, but out of the country as well.
Satisfying as that may have been to our psyches that military success left us holding the bag while trying to figure out what to do next. So, filled with hubris from being “liberators” of a much oppressed people (whom we had once aided in their struggles against the Soviets), we then embarked on a well-intentioned, but seriously misguided, effort to help them re-build their country in a democratic form.

To that end we helped bring back a number of exiles who, seemingly, would have the credibility and capability of creating a new and better matrix for their essentially tribal and feudalistic society. But it didn’t work out that way. Instead, we soon found ourselves having to prop up with both money and guns a weak, ineffective, and corrupt central government, while the rest of the country went to hell in a hand basket by reverting to its tribal warlord conditions.

Step by step we were then forced to send in more troops, more weaponry, and pour more money into what has turned out to be another rat-hole of mostly scam artists, lining their pockets at our expense. Adding insult to these injuries, our erstwhile Pakistani “allies” were playing their own double-dealing con games with us, aiding and abetting both the Taliban we’d run out of the country, and Bin Laden and his al Queda mob who, as we all know, had taken refuge there, living it up on the other side of the border with complete impunity (with “friends” like Pakistan’s ISI….who needs enemies?).

Meanwhile, while our pockets were being so skillfully picked by both the Afghani and Pakistani governments, our guys were steadily being mangled, maimed, and killed, all for no good purpose or result (except perhaps to use them to help protect those poppy fields of the Haqqani Clan and others).

Now here we are, after ten years of what amounts to shoveling sand against a never ending tide of corruption, ineptitude, and just plain unwillingness to do anything to help themselves, looking for a dignified exit….from a cesspool of nation building…. with everyone desperately trying to figure out what would be the least objectionable way to do so.
Among some of the options is the idea of convincing what’s left of the Taliban to bury the hatchet with this Afghani government, come in out of the cold, and re-integrate into Afghani society. Anyone who believes that the Taliban hierarchs would do so in good faith must surely be smoking some of those poppy products that grow there. Once we and our erstwhile NATO associates are out of there, such a house of cards will collapse, reverting back to the barbarous ways of before.

That’s the reality of Afghanistan, and it makes no sense to try and pretend otherwise. It has always been a failed state, with no effective central government worthy of the name. Not even the Soviets, or the Taliban, ever had real control, or did anything useful for its people. They might have held some of their urban places here and there, but the poppy growing warlords ruled the country’s outback.

As for us, it’s time to face that reality and bluntly tell the Afghanis… for ten years we did our best to help you….but all you did was screw around, pick our pockets, and kill our troops. You, the Taliban, and your Pakistani backers, all deserve each other. So we’re out of here tomorrow. Some day, when you’re tired of drowning in your own blood, maybe we’ll come back and help bury what’s left.

But, before we go, we’ll leave you with this friendly bit of sincere advice….you’ve seen how we can mangle the hell out of any force in the field, and, how we can zap anyone anytime, anywhere, with our Special Ops and Drone technologies…so….never forget it.

At this stage, the way things are, that’s about the most dignified exit strategy we have….or can expect.

CENTURION