Afghanistan
Malcolm X used to teach that there is no shame in saying that you used to be a drunk. But there is shame in saying you continue to be a drunk. There's no shame in saying that you used to be a thug, but there is shame if you continue in your thug life-style. I'd hope that most people would tend to agree with Malcolm on that. Yet there seems to be both confusion and diagreement when it comes to the United States.
I fully agree with, and support, President Biden's decision to get us out of Afghanistan. More, I understand that there is no good way -- much less a perfect one -- to withdraw from that distant land. I do not like that people will suffer and die, no matter what route Joe Biden decided upon. But I trust that he, knowing far more significant details than any of us, will do his best to lessen that sad reality.
I do not necessarliy trust some others who were profitting off the war. That does not include the military itself, as any thinking person knows there was never a "military solution" to making Afghanistan a liberal democracy. But there was a potential military solution as far as the initial response -- going after the people responsible for 9/11. A combination of bombing Tora Bora while sending Special Forces to prevent Usama bin Laden from walking into Pakistan would have been good, at least compared to Bush & Cheney taking their attention off of that. Thanks, Donald Rumsfeld. Thanks, industrial complex.
The Bush-Cheney administration was intoxicated on power. They were drunken thugs. Twenty years ago, they behaved in a reckless manner that not only damaged Afghanistan and Iraq, it damaged this country. That shame belongs around their necks. But the United States should have ended this horror long ago. Presidents, the Senate, and the House should have recognized it as an infected wound that would not and could not heal so long as we were there.
This wound cannot heal so long as we limit our thinking to only viewing situations from a western point of view. While some of Afghanistan's people want to live like Americans, it is obvious that not all of the others share our values. In some cases, that creates problems for segments of the population, most obviously women and girls. That's terrible, but it is not the reason we invaded Afghanistan. But other than the US military being there another 79 years, that won't change this century.
I've seen some Good People saying Biden gave the Taliban "legitimacy." This is an example of not understanding the reality beyond from a USA egocentric level. No one can give you legitimacy, they can only try to take it away. No one can give you human rights -- you are born with them -- although they can certainly try to take them away. Watch Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," with Bush hosting the Taliban, and get back to me on how President Biden gave them legitimacy.
Likewise, we hear that the Afghanistan military didn't want to fight. Gosh, I hear an echo from comments on South Vietnam's army didn't care to fight. There is a lesson there that we should have learned decades ago. The Taliban, however, shows a legit willingness to fight, not unlike happened in Vietnam. Neither recognized the authority of the corrupt governments that we attempted to impose. In both wars, only our military industrial complex made out like bandits, off the fighting, killing, suffering and death of the men and women sent to fight a prolonged war.
It was Trump who began the process -- not that his word would be worth any more in an international agreement than his daily pathological lying. But I dare say that President Biden will take a sober approach to a tragic situation that we created 20 years ago.
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I'm so pissed!
I didn't have anything to add to your words.
