[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
Out of all the reeking rationales that have been offered for the insanity of staying at war in Afghanistan for twelve years, media and political fear has offered the most queasily rational answer, the Democratic Obama administration was never ever going to wear the label as the Weenies Who Gave Up On Terrorists. After this eternity of agony, blood and treasure expended in utter failure, why keep the war bleeding up until the end of the next year, why?
So the war on terrorism weenie label, to be so ferociously beamed forth on Fox, wingnut radio and the Republican Party teahadists as soon we officially lose and leave, can’t leave a mark on the 2014 midterm elections.
This…this…putrid effluvium of foreign policy failure and fear apparently even penetrated the vastly dense morality of the White House recently, for in the State of the Union the President announced in a classically tragic compromise-prone mentality that the number of troops losing lives and limbs in Afghanistan to cover the 2014 midterms would be cut in half. Whether this actually happened is unknown, the US journalism corps, soaked in embedded blood, doesn’t care and, well, we all know about results from Obama speeches.
Then six days ago the Obama administration floated the puzzling trial balloon that the United States would leave Afghanistan entirely next year, nothing left behind, not even the ridiculous number of 8,000 troops slated to be left there after we lose. The amusingly cheeky Karzai government huffed the bluff would never happen and re-iterated it’s total unhappiness that the Obama administration in is peace talks with the Taliban.
Peace talks? With what actual entity? Taliban means anything and everything we want to shoot at in Afghanistan, not one American knows who the “leadership” of this phantom force of such scary evil is, we have nothing on them and can never catch them in that godforsaken blasted armpit of a country. Whatever game of “peace talks” the Obama administration is trying to wring out in this total loser of policy and political failure is totally unknown, it doesn’t matter, it will never work without even our little pawn Karzai on board. We have lost and will leave, if the Obama Administration wants to even somehow enrage their puny chess piece to the point of even not allowing 8,000 American troops to stay in 2015, well, good things can arise out of the strangest circumstances.
One belatedly, wearily surmises our mighty warriors of the West Wing want to have in their pocket the rationale that when we lose and leave that hey, we tried to negotiate the Taliban, nothing worked. We’ll all be stupefied nothing worked after we killed and demonized them as The Most Evil Ever for 12 years and Karzai hated you for it, yeah.
For the bazilloninth time, there is not one remotely viable security threat in Afghanistan that justifies one life of American presence or one dime of American spending, nothing, whatever stupid bullying rationale of revenge that existed initially was completely gone in 2008, five years of blood and $600 billion spent since then have only seriously degraded American policy and security in failure.
Failure. We will lose and leave, nothing will ever change that, the Obama administration currently sets the time at December 2014.
One of the more pernicious, creeping evils of endless war is the de-sensitizing of horror, what was once unthinkable in peacetime eventually becomes common and unworthy of comment. That might be plausible if combating The Most Evil Ever, but even if it was the problem is that the mentality of cruel indifference can instantly, seamlessly be applied to any human, not just the enemy. Our Japanese Americans know this very well.
So after spending $600 billion dollars in total war failure (indifference to cruelty is just one aspect of war horror) the Senate recently voted to cut food stamps in our time of employment catastrophe, and the House didn’t even include any legislation for food stamps at all. Whatever finally happens in this sickening whirlpool of Washington politics will still likely mean cuts to food stamps, more desperately hungry American children in the land of milk and honey.
While we continue to throw away $120 billion on the Afghanistan war this year, then again next year.
An indifferent, corporate press that loves war ratings and drama, an immensely powerful defense contractor war lobby that keeps the insanity going, disgusting political and media fear, all these factors keep the insane Afghanistan war going, yes. But we have also let indifference to cruelty creep on us to a horrifying degree, even if it means letting our own people starve.