Clinton Cops To 'Collateral Damage'

Under Bush and his backers (who have NO claim to the tea-party movement), it was verboten to mention that nation-building or democracy-spreading—whatever the term du jour to describe America’s assorted missions and monster slaying—costs the people upon whom these “blessings” are visited.

Bush backers in the media became indignant—still do—whenever it was suggested that America’s bravest inadvertently, and unintentionally, killed scores of innocent civilians.

Today, after one of those expeditions that resulted in “collateral damage,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “Washington ‘deeply, deeply’ regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike.”

But what are you going to do about it, Madam? Why not terminate the “mission” to Afghanistan?

That “mission” I summed-up in “A War He Can Call His Own“:

Nations building is Democrat for spreading democracy. Spreading democracy is Republican for nation building. These interchangeable concepts stand for an open-ended military presence with all the pitfalls that attach to Iraq.

Americans are currently training the Afghan army. As in Iraq, it’ll take years if not decades before the training wheels can be removed. The men of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions have made magnificent progress in pushing the Taliban back. But the gains are short-lived. The Taliban invariably regroup. Their stake in that country is simply greater than ours. Always will be. Then there are the costs and the casualties. When Special Forces target the Taliban, they frequently infringe on tribal territory instead. Civilians die. Tribal elders are enraged, and rightly so.

Nation building in that country also entails policing a corruption-riddled police force. Afghani officers of the law are “uniformed thieves.” They run the opium trade by which the impoverished Afghani farmers survive. Somewhere on the food chain sit the drug traffickers. We mediate between them and other crime bosses, or war lords, as they are known. When we supply impoverished farmers with basic supplies, the Taliban first fleece these long-suffering folks and then punish them for collaborating with the Americans. By swooping down to save the locals from the Taliban we cripple them with kindness and deepen their dependency.

Another of the contradictions of occupation: The Pashtun population we patronize happens to disdain the central government we hope to strengthen. So it goes: We help local groups we believe to be patriots but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate. Pakistan anyone?