AFGHANISTAN

The withdrawal of US military troops from Afghanistan by September is long overdue. Kabul is 6,917 miles from Washington, DC. Neither the wretched government of Afghanistan, nor the Taliban thugs who challenge it, pose any sustainable threat to the United States. In the event of an attack by either, our military could extinguish the source of that attack with drones in a matter of hours. 

Afghanistan is a globally significant source of heroin, from opium poppies. It is not a coincidence that a heroin high became cheaper than a six pack of beer while we occupied Afghanistan. The exportation of that huge supply of heroin to The West could not have happened without the knowledge (and perhaps involvement) of our military. However, with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Fentanyl, supplied by Mexican drug cartels, is replacing heroin as the cheap street opioid of choice.  

The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan reaped fortunes for the military-industrial complex. Members of the ranks of US military on the ground did not become wealthy. Too many were killed. Tens of thousands were permanently mutilated and disabled. Corporate media relentlessly promote the sacrifice of military veterans. Few, if any in the corporate media, stop to question why those sacrifices were made. Politicians of all political leanings  exploit the sentiments manufactured by the media barrage of militaristic patriotism. 

The greatest nation-state beneficiary of the Iraq War was Israel. The destabilization of Iraq and Syria made them less of an organized threat against Israel. Pakistan and Russia benefited from our presence in Afghanistan. Pakistan received huge bribes from the US to monitor and contain the Taliban. They did not deliver. Those bribes were wasted on a corrupt Pakistani leadership. Russia benefited simply by having the US in the region as an alternate focus of violent Islamic extremism. Russia's own failure in modernizing Afghanistan should have been heeded as a precaution against our involvement there from the beginning. 

The American public lost nearly a $1 trillion in taxpayer money in Afghanistan. And, as we are trying to recover from the devastation of the global pandemic, that loss figures into the inevitable inflation that will result from government bailouts. Yes, our food, housing and essential services will cost us, the taxpayers, much more partly due to the foolish expenditures wasted in Afghanistan (and Iraq, and Syria) for two decades. As the Taliban assert their inevitable influence at throwing Afghanistan back into feudal chaos, we will be able to appreciate just how wasteful that war was for us, the citizens of the USA. 

But the globalist oligarchs are satisfied. They managed to manipulate our great nation into being the enforcer of their globalist vision. And we, the American taxpayers and American soldiers, paid for it. The more foolish among us rant and cheer about American militarism. They have been distracted from the erosion of their quality of life as a result of that militarism. 

Political Progressives in the US are prone to support globalist military missions abroad in the name of imposing uniform international 'social justice', even though no such thing is ever likely to exist. Political conservatives in the US are bound historically to a pro-military stance. However, that stance by conservatives makes little or no sense when our military leadership leans more and more toward Progressive globalism and abandons pro-American nationalism. 

This moment, as we pull out of Afghanistan, could be a turning point toward becoming a nation of non-military diplomacy and non-military national service. The forces within our political establishments which seek to kill our identity as a unique nation with extraordinary qualities are likely to fuel divisive internal discord and chaos. Future nationalist leaders may use waging war on an external enemy as a unifying principle and profitable corporate enterprise to pull our nation together. The endless flood of migrants from impoverished countries could supply the flesh and bone to be expended on remote battlefields of the future. 

Think of the value our nation would gain by requiring a universal two-year period of national service of its young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. There are intelligent members of Congress who are considering this. The power of the corporate military-industrial complex can be bridled by the participation of all citizens in compulsory national service, military or civilian. The benefit to our national identity and sense of national unity would be enormous. 

A truly progressive government would see the value in encouraging its youth to work and to study for their own advancement. There is no progressive value in handing out welfare checks (universal guaranteed income) or paying off student loans to benefit banks and overpriced universities. There is value in honest labor and substantive education. National service could reward participants with acquired skills and educational benefits which could serve them for their entire adult lives.