“Wait. What? America in Afghanistan”

After almost twenty full years and billions upon billions of dollars spent, the U.S.

has finally withdrawn troops from Afghanistan. This left many people outraged

at how the withdrawal went down and rightfully so. The fact is though, the

withdrawal was going to be messy no matter when we left. Why? It was a circus

from day one. It’s easy to see the images coming out of Kabul, put on a frown,

shake your head and point a finger at Biden and say, “This is bad, I am mad,

you should do better.” Yes. He should have.

But also, we, as a nation, should have.

For two decades we’ve let our government get away with a lot of underhanded stuff

because they assured us that whatever it was, it was better than the alternative. The alternative always being something vague like, “…or the terrorists have won” or “...don’t let them take away YOUR freedom, vote such and such.”

The truth is, it’s been a disaster from the start and is doomed to fail. We were never

there for the reasons that they told us. We were there because our occupation was

profitable. They told us they were going to set up “A strong centralized democracy.” That’s commendable, right?

What they did though was adopt a policy of paying off and co-opting warlords and drug traffickers who, instead of coming anywhere close to a strong centralized

democracy, became what one retired colonel called a “‘kleptocracy’ under which

people in power could plunder the economy without restraint.”

What they did was run drone strikes that killed 71,000 Afghan citizens, women and

children. As for the people that survived, we left an entire generation traumatized with PTSD from having watched their neighbors and loved ones murdered by someone a thousand miles away sitting at a computer as if they were NPCs in Grand Theft Auto.

For twenty years three consecutive administrations assured us that everything was fine. W. told us it was going great. Barry O. said it was a success. Trump said, “We

have accomplished many great things in Afghanistan.” Then, two years ago, some

documents made their way to the Washington Post in which military commanders, aid workers, and diplomats all expressed similar sentiments that their mission in Afghanistan had been and continued to be “unclear.”

Former Afghan war czar, retired General Douglas Lute, was quoted as saying, “What are we trying to do here? We didn’t have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.”

S.I.G.A.R., the Special Inspector General of Afghan Reconstruction, whose mandate was to promote efficiency and prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, reported that the U.S.

government’s goals were often “operationally impractical” or “conceptually incoherent.”

So, what was it all for? Why did we spend twenty years failing, only to pull out and

fail on an even grander scale? Like I said before, it was profitable.

If you bought two grand worth of stock in each of the U. S.’s top five defense

contractors the day President Bush signed the Authorization for Use of Military

Force in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then reinvested all dividends,

it would now be worth $97,295. Of course, these companies’ boards of directors

are peppered with ex-military high command and Washington insiders.

We went in to get rid of Al-Qaeda, but we stayed for the all-mighty dollar. The Afghan

military collapsed after twelve days because it was a sham. The people there

who helped us did so because we gave them false hope. We signed a deal with the

Taliban and were surprised that they immediately started terrorizing the

countryside when we were gone. They are terrorists. It’s what they do! I’m happy that the blowback was swift and strong, but it’s not enough because this was always an

unwinnable situation and we had to get out.

It’s tragic, and I urge you to call your senators and your congressmen and let them

know that we owe these people refuge. I ask that you remember how this went down the next time America wants to play world police. Let’s get our act together at home before we run off trying to fix everyone else’s problems.