04-08-2019, 08:28 AM
Why are we still involved in our endless war in Afghanistan? We are remaining in Afghanistan for the minerals and the opium.
The NY Times ran a detailed feature a few years ago giving a virtual
shopping list of minerals for the military-industrial complex and
essentially acknowledging that is why we are there. However, Trump
recently complained in a meeting that China is getting the minerals
and we aren't.
Of course we are not in Afghanistan for military
reasons. We don't try to "win" wars anymore. We are there to loot
and plunder and intimidate -- classic imperialist strategies. A friend
of mine who served in Iraq several years back told me his unit commander explicitly told
the men they were not there to win but simply to hold their ground. The same
is true of Afghanistan. The United States has not won a war since 1945 (with
the major help of the Soviets), and not coincidentally that was the last
legal war, the last one we declared. We have lost every war since,
including Korea and Vietnam (the sole exception is Grenada, which
was a farce, with our huge military machine attacking a small island country.)
No one has been able to conquer Afghanistan since Alexander
the Great, and that was some time ago. (See also Kipling's
classic satire "The Man Who Would Be King" and the John
Huston film version.) I heard a speech by a former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs who said it is impossible to conquer
Afghanistan both because of the inhospitable terrain and because it is not
really a nation but a very loose amalgam of often warring tribes.
The NY Times ran a detailed feature a few years ago giving a virtual
shopping list of minerals for the military-industrial complex and
essentially acknowledging that is why we are there. However, Trump
recently complained in a meeting that China is getting the minerals
and we aren't.
Of course we are not in Afghanistan for military
reasons. We don't try to "win" wars anymore. We are there to loot
and plunder and intimidate -- classic imperialist strategies. A friend
of mine who served in Iraq several years back told me his unit commander explicitly told
the men they were not there to win but simply to hold their ground. The same
is true of Afghanistan. The United States has not won a war since 1945 (with
the major help of the Soviets), and not coincidentally that was the last
legal war, the last one we declared. We have lost every war since,
including Korea and Vietnam (the sole exception is Grenada, which
was a farce, with our huge military machine attacking a small island country.)
No one has been able to conquer Afghanistan since Alexander
the Great, and that was some time ago. (See also Kipling's
classic satire "The Man Who Would Be King" and the John
Huston film version.) I heard a speech by a former
chairman of the Joint Chiefs who said it is impossible to conquer
Afghanistan both because of the inhospitable terrain and because it is not
really a nation but a very loose amalgam of often warring tribes.