Afghanistan Truth or Consequences

 

After reading dozens of accurate reports and variedly opinions (many valid and some not) regarding the causes and consequences now on the ground in Afghanistan -- there are a few fundamental truths that I’ve yet heard mentioned.

First some existing truths.

1.       This is the longest war the US has ever been involved in.

2.       We lost approximately 2,300 US soldiers, 3,800 American contractors, and spent well over a trillion dollars.

3.       Afghanistan lost approximately 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police, and at least 47,000 Afghan civilians.

4.       Afghanistan’s wealth of rare earth metals is estimated at over $3 trillion in current value.

5.       Taliban’s income from illegal narcotics is estimated at few billion each year.

6.       The original US goal of killing OBL morphed into nation building mostly with military power.

7.       Given historical, geographical, political, religious, economic, national, and corruption conditions --a US defeat was inevitable.

The current situation in Afghanistan is the inevitable consequences of failed US foreign and military policy.   A Constitution that did not prevent an unauthorized war to go after a mass murderer who justified his attack as retaliation against a murderous US foreign policy.  We really waged a war against fear (terrorism) that could never really be won without committing genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity against people we suspect of not agreeing with us, but cannot prove in a court of law.  We served ‘justice’ with invasions, occupations, torture, and mass murder. 

In brief –our nation continued putting our own short term ‘interests’ above our nation’s founding principles stated in our Declaration of Independence.  Put bluntly – inalienable human rights continue to be expendable – without a court of law.  And any serious establishment sourced proposal - to systemically change this - is deemed unrealistic.   In truth such systemic transformation is the only way of preventing future catastrophic failures of such magnitude.

Tragically, the world’s most powerful governments continue to reject this self-evident truth - and increasingly function chaotically with predictable catastrophic consequences.  The current global governance system based on the illusion of independence between peoples was hatched over 400 years ago at the Treaty of Westphalia.  Back then the word sovereignty referred to a God given right possessed by each individual.  But the rulers of large groups of waring mutated this fundamental truth into a flawed concept we worship today as ‘national sovereignty’.   Originally this mutation intended to limit the scope and range of murdering innocent individuals beyond certain lines just because of their choice of religion or God appointed leader.   

Today the functional definition of this flawed system is in a world where national borders are irrelevant to the movement of money, pollution, communications, technology, and other WMD precursors.   Governments have created unenforceable rules we call “International Laws” that can only be enforce by war, sanctions (which can be more lethal than war – or spark one), diplomacy (threats), or covert operations (assassinations, cyber-attacks, or mercenaries.