It’s really sad. Bomb the shit out of a place, bribe some corrupt bastards that you backed the people you are now replacing because they were monumentally corrupt drug dealers, and call it victory. Low level killing for 20 years and then slink off leaving the collaborators to their fate. It’s like Vietnam never actually provided any lessons. The US seemed to be actively engaged in pretending that they won Vietnam when they invaded Afghanistan.
How can the architects of that look at themselves and still look down on the Soviet Union’s involvement with Afghanistan?
Vietnam? They never learned the lesson of basically all of history:
Who looks at Afghanistan after Britain and Russia and thinks “We can do a better job”?
Oh, it did… that war is profitable, for one. A great distraction for other issues, too. A way to get people less civically engaged back home when they find out you lied about it, meaning that the oligarchs can retain greater level of power in government. Etc.
And people forget that support for the war was still pretty high in 1974. Something like 30% were still in favor. And it’s an article of faith on the right that if we lost the war it’s because liberal politicians hamstrung the generals and wouldn’t let them fight.
They also have an actual objective as opposed to some vague sense that they need to stop terror or promote liberty or whatever. As long as they are getting the resources out of the ground they will call it a win.
Which is ironic, considering that the guy who really unleashed hell in Vietnam was President Johnson, because he didn’t want to be the guy who lost Vietnam… I guess technically that ended up being Nixon, but only because Johnson decided not to run.
But there’s always an upside for the US! And, I’m not being cynical for fun here, I genuinely believe the Kissinger logic that led the US to back the Taliban in the first place is still in play: fucking Iran.
