printBelatedly, and after spilling much blood and treasure for nothing at all in Afghanistan, mainstream opinion makers have concluded what we non-interventionists concluded a decade ago. Making Afghans (and Iraqis) wards of the American state will increase their impotence (to say nothing of violating their negative, leave-me-alone rights and ours, as we’ve paid for the adventure in lost lives and livelihoods). “Ultimately, philanthropic wars are transfer programs—the quintessential big-government projects.”
A “two-year congressional investigation from Senate Democrats” gives details of the defeat. Via the National Journal:
“World Bank data estimates that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product comes from spending related to the military and donor community presence, according the report, which warns that a withdrawal could pull the rug out from under the Afghan economy.” …
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I suspect that slashing and burning the Afghans’ poppy fields hasn’t helped them either. “In a country with a poor infrastructure, the ‘relatively stable value of opium and its nonperishability means that it can also serve as an important source of savings and investment among traders and cultivators.'” (From “Tokers Are Terrorists Now”)
The major differences between Afghanistan and South Vietnam are:
1. Afghanistan is even more screwed up than South Vietnam ever was and more corrupt
2, Wars were more manpower (draft) intensive in the 1960’s and therefore the American people got to turn against the Vietnam war unlike Afghanistan which is fought largely by Blackwater type mercenaries and career volunteers
3. Ironically, the communist threat was far more scary (60,000 nukes and 1.5 billion people) than the Taliban threat – but nothing stops us from staying in that bathtub of manure playing Whack-A-Mole for $ 100,000,000,000.00 ++ per year
Another view of ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’