Afghanistan and the US and us!
What a terrible mess the mighty US, assisted by our various lapdog governments, have landed us in with the Afghan situation.
I'm not normally given to making political statements on this site... I avoid it like the plague, like Covid, like racism, like anything too contentious.
One reason for my stance is that I wanted this blog to be dedicated to issues of creativity rather than news, current affairs and politics.
But today is somewhat special.
Here we are after 20 years of warfare in a foreign country, all for the very best of reasons, 41 of our soldiers died there, many more were wounded, many atrocities were committed "in our name", after all most Afghans would see us as invaders of their homeland, and countless soldiers have suffered deep emotional wounds which will be with them for the rest of their days... some have already taken their own lives... and we walk out on it ? We did exactly what was set up by the Trump administration, now followed by the Biden administration.. no it's not "abandonment" which is what one US official said on TV the other day, not a re-run of the fall of Saigon... no it is "an orderly wirthdrawal"... ha ha, please excuse me, this is not at all funny... "Blind Freddie" could have seen this coming, but not our politicians.
In this case I align myself with Blind Freddie.. I could see it coming from before Trump was in power and I'm no political genius. All the signs over the last 10 years were that the US and other Western nations would eventually pull out and that they would suffer the very same fate as the Russians did in Afghanistan, just as the US did in Vietnam, a most terrible humiliation!
All those military experts in the Pentagon and in our own armed forces, all the fucking idiots who gave their "expert opinions" and their "waterclad assessments" of the situation to their political bosses, figureheads who as usual passed them onto to their civilians despite all the questions raised by the media over so many years... they said it would be an orderly withdrawal and that the nightmare of Saigon would not be repeated... but it is being repeated on a grand scale.
Blind Freddie and I could both see this coming and I'm sure most of my friends would agree with me on this.
But there is worse!
What have we actually done? I mean us and the mighty US, of course.
What we have done is to arm and train up an army in Afghanistan, a very large force, extremely well trained in the use of the most modern weapons, all of which we have just handed over to the Taliban. Twenty years of deep training in modern weaponry goes to the Taliban for free as a parting gift.
Despite about $89 billion budgeted for training the Afghan army, it took the Taliban little more than a month to brush it aside.
Now to the "abandonment" which has not occurred!
No, we and the mighty US have not abandoned our former allies, nor have we abandoned the interpreters who worked with our soldiers, and nor have we abandoned all the innocent people of Afghanistan, especially the women and girls, who just wanted to become "a modern nation" like us... to crawl up from the medievel slime and become a modern nation where women and girls can be eductated, become doctors, lawyers, journos, architects, business women who could lead modern corporations just as women are now able to do in the US and here in Australia...
no we have not "abandoned" them, we have just left them in the lurch... I hesitate to use a good old Anglo word, in the shit!
We have consigned all those women and young girls to a medieval nighmare where they will once more become the chattels of their fathers and husbands, husbands who are often forced upon them, not chosen by them, and not permitted to become properly functioning adult civilians.
Yet all this was the result of us trying to give them the "rights" we say belong to all human beings in every nation, even though these rights seem to be missing in so many nations.
So dear friends, please forgive me this diatribe. This is a terrible situation, truly a nightmare. You have all seen the many images which have hit the news in the last two days.
I leave you with just this one:
THIS IS NOT SAIGON
pt
This situation raises huge questions (once again) about something we could call "shared international responsibility", around universal human rights, universal living conditions, etc. The international groups such as UN, NATO, etc. seem so ineffective. Unfortunately, everything still only revolves around war guarding (or avenging) national interests, or war involving colonisation, with the international bodies not able to achieve much in terms of monitoring let alone punishing war crimes. And this also applies to WITHIN borders, i.e. civil wars. It's a constant struggle, fighting abuse and oppression, but it is something we need to keep doing.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a huge question here Bill. Do you mean to say we should keep on invading other people's countries and using our military power to bring them over to our way of seeing things?
ReplyDeleteShould we march into China to free the Uighers?
That's the rub, Peter ! Biden wants basically to "not meddle" with a country, which I find admirable. BUT - there has to be international systems in place ensuring certain rights are monitored and even upheld if possible. And that's the million dollar question - how can ANY body do such a thing, especially in relation to countries like North Korea or China ?
DeleteIt sure is a conundrum Bill. We are caught in a difficult position. What can we do if our efforts with a rather small nation like Afghanistan are counterproductive and doomed to failure. The USA will not take on China or other major nations, because no-one wants to risk a full-scale war. But even limited warfare such as we have seen in various regions, Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, Ukraine, and now Afghanistan (twice over if you count the Russian debacle)... they have all led to immense expenditure, huge loss of life on both sides, including many civilians, and they have led to war crimes which are always a feature of warfare, even those between small ethinic groups. And we have been involved in most of the above.
ReplyDeleteShould Trump have taken on North Korea and the little Rocket Man? Well, I hate both of these guys, but in retrospect it's probably a good thing that they had their meetings and big old Dumbo shook hands with the little murderer and that no war eventuated then. No rockets hit any targets although some came close.
It's incredibly complex Bill, but one thing is for sure: the "mighty" USA, aided and abetted by many Western nations, has fallen short and suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a bunch of medieval marauders. And the mighty USA and all its allies, including us, have weaponised these people to an unimaginable degree. All the state-of-the-art weapons accompanied by expert intruction... and all for free!
I know it's a contradiction in terms, but the US could have kept "peace-keeping" troops there, for dealing with the Taliban, but I suppose that's what they were actually doing the past few years and they got jack of it. It's now back to the cycle - wait for the next Osama, deal with him, leave the country in a mess, rinse and repeat !
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