A THREADBARE FIG LEAF
(….to cover what’s left of our national dignity….as we withdraw)

The recent “historic” agreement just signed in Kabul by President Obama and President Karzai signals that we’re done with Afghanistan, and, amounts to a threadbare fig leaf to cover what’s left of our national dignity….as we withdraw.
After ten years of blood, sweat, and tears (mostly ours), and floods of fully-depreciated dollars, we’re finally starting to pull out from a situation that was a no-win proposition from the very beginning.

Our original purpose for charging into Afghanistan was just to kick the Taliban regime’s ass for having harbored Bin Laden and his al Qaeda mob, the perpetrators responsible for the 9/11 attack against us. And much like a dangerously wounded and enraged lion, once there, we proceeded to mangle anything and anyone within reach. In short, for that purpose, we succeeded very well, running both the Taliban and Bin Laden & Co. not just out of town, but right out of Afghanistan and off into the northern wilderness of neighboring Pakistan’s Waziristan tribal area.

Which is when all our troubles in Afghanistan began.

Fixated with what can only be labeled a – Missionary Complex – to spread and implant our brand of ‘democracy” onto a tribal society who’s only version of it was tribal custom and warlord rule, we made the same mistake there as we did in Iraq….attempting to raise up a so-called central government with the presumption such an entity would then have the authority and power to enforce security and civil stability over the entire country. Something our hierarchs in Washington could deal with on terms they’re familiar and comfortable with (US governments have never cared much for dealing with anything but national “sovereign” entities, viz. the way they always maneuvered while negotiating treaties during our Indian Wars here at home).

Unfortunately, that central government we helped raise in Kabul has turned out to be as useful and effective as tits on a boar (pardon the use of old-Army language here, but that’s the most appropriate description of it we can think of). It’s not only the epitome of the word –corrupt-, its authority barely reaches much beyond the confines of Kabul’s city limits, if that. Worse yet, after ten years of organizing, arming, and “training” by our military pros, Afghanistan’s national army and police forces are still in need of more “training” for the foreseeable future (as a former DI I managed to whip a bunch of draftees and raw recruits into some semblance of military capacity in only eight weeks. Are they telling us that Afghans are just slow learners?).

Compounding all such nonsense has been our failure to realize and understand that the key reason we haven’t done better in Afghanistan is because of neighboring Pakistan’s ongoing paranoia about India. It will neither support nor allow the development of a peaceful and stable Afghanistan for fear such a thing could then enhance any Indian influence there. Thus, its military and ISI authorities have, from the start of our Afghan operations, played a two-faced game of smiling at our face to keep all those military assistance goodies flowing to them, while aiding and abetting our Taliban and al Qaeda foes behind out backs. With allies like these….who needs enemies!

We probably could have done better for ourselves, and achieved better results at half the cost in both our and our allies’ soldiers lives and money, had we opted for a policy of buying off all those Afghan warlords we clobbered, on a long term support basis in arms and money, under the following terms: a)Keep the peace and bump off any Taliban or any al Qaeda you find on your turf, b)Avoid feuding with your fellow warlords. Do it, and we’ll keep the arms and money spigots open and flowing. Screw up or double-cross us in any way and…you’re dead! That would have been the kind of language they would all have understood.

Well, a fig leaf is better than nothing, I suppose, as we pack up our mess kits…and move out. Something we should have done long before this.

CENTURION