Skeptical Humorist

A few weeks back a friend asked, “Why are we in Afghanistan?” I didn’t respond right away because I hadn’t read the McChrystal piece in Rolling Stone. It hasn’t changed my approach to the issue.

Originally we went there with a few hundred super-cool operatives to take out a couple of trailer parks manned by the usual bottom quartile of Arab engineering students.

That victory was mostly attained within a matter of days. One unfortunate detail was the failure to capture the Tall Guy. That was flumoxed so incompetently as to appear to be on purpose. Maybe he’s better served as a myth on the loose?

Once the glory of seizing Afghanistan proved to be so simple, and since we already had lots of men and equipment on the move, The Masters said; “Hey let’s not let an opportunity pass us by! The national psyche is primed for war. Let’s take out Sadam!”

Thus began the professions of “I am a War President.”

So they put Afghanistan on “minimum maintenance life-support” and transitioned national excitement to the fear of an Iraqi “mushroom cloud.”

Afghanistan became “the forgotton war”, and as such, no definitive description of victory was established, nor required. It was allowed to become a “Lost Expedition”, with drifting expectations and justifications for continued occupation, all of which were largely unexamined by the national attention. Plus of course, the Afghanis had their own agenda.

Once we activate any military action there are three naturally occuring corollary forces:

1. When Americans begin dying, we can’t let them be considered to have died in vain. We need to justify and avenge those deaths. This is a military conundrum.
2. The Military-Industrial Complex that feeds the operation takes on a profit and employment momentum which seeks all opportunities to continue regardless of reason. The preponderance of war profiteers is Republican, so this is a Republican conundrum.
3. Unless “Victory!” is clearly defined, it will become a media/political screaming match to define it. In the case of Afghanistan, as with Vietnam, the Democrats cannot accept an additional “Weak On National Defense” merit badge that they would receive if they initiated a pullout of Afghanistan with anything less than “Victory!”. This is a Democratic conundrum.

There are some mineral spoils in Afghanistan, as there are some petroleum spoils in Iraq. It would be a shame if either of these expeditions were proven to be based on commodity colonization.

So we are still there fighting the 14th Century in a Sisyphian task of modernizing a culture, a politics, and an economy. Nobody has been able to bridge the political gap between a nationally acceptable “Victory!” and a more modest realistic appraisal of what can or should cost-effectively be done. In most historical cases this is only accomplished in a state of complete exhaustion. Our domestic economy may provide us that catalyst.