Tag: Afghanistan

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national politics & policies

Endless Fog of Endless War

Yesterday, NBC’s Chuck Todd opened a “Meet the Press” segment by calling U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq “wars now without an end.”

“The U.S. now seems to be in a semi-​permanent state of war,” added Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel.

“Right now, we’re just in damage control,” explained Lt. General Dan Bolger, Retired, the author of Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. “Our enemies, the Taliban and ISIS, are talking about winning.”

Mr. Todd asked, “Why do we have this incredible military that can’t win these wars?”

“The military can give you a quick victory over a conventional army. It cannot deliver a rebuilt country in the place you go,” replied the general. “That takes an effort of the entire U.S. population and government. And moreover, it takes the commitment of the American people for the long term.”

And then Baghdad and Kabul will look a lot like Chicago or Boston?

“At what point do we walk away?” Todd wanted to know. Never?

“It becomes difficult to walk away, because these situations are spinning quite badly out of control,” offered Sarah Chayes, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and formerly an assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “And it’s spreading.”

Our decade-​plus in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost us greatly and accomplished little good, if any.

Even a century of Americans fighting and occupying and pacifying these countries will not succeed. The cost, not just in billions of tax dollars, but also in thousands of our countrymen dead and maimed, is unacceptable.

It’s time to really end the “endless” wars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Ghost Money Doesn’t Buy “Boo”

It turns out it’s not so easy to buy Afghani politicians.

You might think they’d come cheaper than American pols, but you might be wrong.

Seems the most you can “buy” is access to a politician. The very quiddity of a politician, the difference that makes a difference, is the politician’s ability to change his mind. That precludes out-​and-​out purchase. It’s more like what Dick Armey called it: renting.

The United States taxpayer has poured nearly two-​thirds of a trillion dollars into the Afghanistan war, and there’s also $10 billion in official annual aid and who knows how many “millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags” by the CIA in hopes of securing the election and continued cooperation of the Karzai government.

But that cooperation didn’t last. It didn’t buy the U.S. permanent immunity status — apparently Obama administration higher ups wanted permanent war status in Afghanistan, protected from negative fallout like court suits.

The CIA-​supplied suitcases of U.S. taxpayer money had a special name in the Karzai inner circle: Ghost money. What came in secret left in secret.

That’s why the “bought” — er, “rented” — don’t stay on the take for long.  Why should they? What money? What payment?

You mean ghost money?

We don’t see no ghosts.

Sadly, there appears to be a lot of truth to the quip of one American official, quoted in the New York Times: “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan was the United States.”

On the bright side, this may mean that American forces will be withdrawn, perhaps even in toto, within the year.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.