Based on our clear recollection of recent history and our eternal aspiration for moral rectitude, it is profoundly disturbing that, in many quarters, President Joseph Biden been made the scapegoat of the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco. The individual to be properly seen with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, was President George Bush, the dumbest of the offspring of elegant parents, [President] George Sr., and Barbara Bush, and the evident bosom buddy of the military-industrial complex.
As we recall, the Afghan adventure was undertaken following the events of 9/11, in which several religious lunatics took down one of the gigantic New York twin towers and damaged the Pentagon building in Washington, by threats of physical injury with box cutters in three airplanes. The Bush’s retaliative, populist, and, ultimately, exorbitant motive in declaring war on Afghanistan was, as was declared by his administration to “deny terrorists a safe haven.”
Any cursory review of the relevant history would have revealed the numerous failed Afghan wars, that, with reason, led to the knowledgeably held historical perspective, that war with the tribally populated Afghanistan was “unwinnable.” Its ominous name, “The graveyard of Empires,” was supported by empirically historical experience. The so-called “Nation” of Afghanistan is, in political reality, a loose conglomerate of ruling tribes, subtribes, and clans, whose controlling warlords make the existence of any central government, merely a theoretical entity. Other countries, viz., England and Russia, like the contemporary United States, were obliged to withdraw, with their “tail between their legs,” from this wild, mountainous terrain and unmanageable, anachronistic, and loosely conglomerated country.
The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1839-1842, was termed, following Britain’s withdrawal, “The Disaster in Afghanistan,” The Second and Third English Wars ended similarly, as did the Russian War, 1979-1980, the latter, having largely been driven out by heavily armed guerilla groups, collectively called the “Mujahedeen.” It may be with, exquisite pain noted that the Mujahedeen were supported and armed in their war with Russia, by the United States. It is tragically ironic to note that the Taliban was the successor to the Mujahedeen, thus America’s previously supplied weapons and supplies were, later on, used against it; another, of the bright tributes to our State Department.
To return to our initial observation, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were commenced under the administration of the second, partially educated, frat-boy George Bush, to the gainful delight of the military-industrial complex. Later Presidents unwillingly inherited the legacy of the Afghan monstrosity. If it were not so tragically related to countless deaths and unmentionable suffering, we would derisively, recall the ludicrous banners and declaration of victory, “Mission Accomplished,” publicly asserted and publicly broadcasted, throughout the Nation, by its misguided and sophomoric, President, Bush.
America has a 20- year history of Presidential promises to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. One can reasonably assume that if it were not so difficult, it would have been accomplished a long time ago but we found ourselves unfortunately mired in that country. Bush unrealistically, tried “Nation Building,” which was contrary to the folkways and sociology of the Afghan people and as expected, failed. Obama succeeded in getting the U.S. out of Iraq and delivering justice to Osama Bin Laden; but not in his promise to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan. By the time Biden came into office, the American public, in general, favored the U.S. withdrawal from that country, the adventure has cost American lives and many trillions of wasted dollars. The newly elected, President Biden had promised the voter that he would withdraw our troops from that mountainous, tribal, anachronism; and can take credit for being the first President, in four decades of Presidential promises to do so, to make it happen.
Any Presidential administration, which, indeed, kept its Afghan promise, would, inarguably, experience the quagmire of problems and multiple frustration being experienced in today’s withdrawal. The basic, causative problem was entering into a modern conventional war, for populist reasons of revenge, with this Stateless, tribally religious, amorphous country.
President Biden should not properly, by any reasonable measure, be visited with adverse criticism for sincerely keeping his election promise to the American people; nor, indeed, for the frustrating, inevitably complex primitive quagmire, that is uniquely, Afghanistan.
-p.
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