The United States is finally bailing out of Afghanistan (maybe) after 19 years of pursuing an exercise in futility, i.e. creating a stable government. It is is a move which is not only long overdue but one which never should have been necessary.
President Joe Biden has done the right thing (maybe). Other presidents sought to withdraw the troops, and even made bold promises to the American public to do so, but always came up with one excuse or another not to keep that promise. Biden, however, said it clearly and succinctly; he would not send “another generation of American men and women” to fight a war based upon nation-building.
The hawks of whatever political stripe jumped on him immediately. They said he was abandoning a valuable ally against the depredations of Muslim extremists. They said the cultural gains the United States had brought to Afghanistan would be reversed by the extremists to the detriment of democracy. They said the rest of the world no longer would be able to trust the United States to seek peace and order whenever and wherever they were threatened. They said…the excuses to remain in Afghanistan to fight forever piled up in a dung heap.
George W. Bush started this war in 2002 in order to lay hands on Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the attacks on American domestic soil 11 September 2001. He got side-tracked in Iraq, and we fought two wars at one time. He never did lay hands on bin Laden; he never did see mission accomplished. Bin laden was finally found in Pakistan and gunned down on the spot, no trial, no conviction, no sentencing, just summary execution because there was no evidence of guilt, by America’s version of Murder, Inc. The war, however, continued the excuses, don’t you know?
Afghanistan never has been a valuable ally. It is shot through and through with corruption. It is shot through and through with liars and grifters. It is shot through and through with warlords jockeying with each other for supremacy. The Muslim extremists have vowed to return the country to “righteousness” (whatever that means); but their version of righteousness is just another form of corruption, and the civil war which has plagued Afghanis for the past 40 years-plus, will continue unabated.
The cultural shift may or may not be a major problem, depending upon the welcome the Afghanis give the Muslim extremists. Like it or not, urban areas have become Westernized, and the extremists will have to resort to mass executions to wipe the slate clean. In the rural areas, militias are forming, because the locals are too used to the absence of religious extremism to accept a new regime being forced upon them.
As for world opinion concerning reliance on American military might to act as the world’s police force, that dog won’t hunt anymore. It’s past time the rest of the world learned to protect itself by stepping up its defense budgets (if necessary) and/or forming new defense alliances. The U.S. always should provide economic and humanitarian assistance where needed, but it should no longer be fighting other countries’ wars for them. Our first president, George Washington, warned us against entangling alliances and was an advocate for strict neutrality.
And this brings us to the “Coddington Agenda” which will create a new paradigm to replace America’s failed foreign policy for the past 120 years. To wit:
Withdraw from all military alliances.
Close all overseas military bases and transfer their personnel, weaponry, and equipment to U.S. bases.
Cease all military assistance to all foreign nations in whatever form it takes (funding, arms sales, training of foreign troops).
Disband the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force and transfer all of their personnel, weaponry, and equipment to the U.S Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and/or the National Guard.
Close the relevant domestic military bases, except those involved in America’s space program (to be designated as the U.S. Space Command).
Abolish the Joints Chiefs of Staff and the offices of the secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force and downsize the entire Pentagon staff.
Amalgamate the Army, Navy, and Air Force National Guards into one unit, to be designated as the U.S. National Guard.
The above changes will save the U.S. taxpayers a ton of money by reducing the Pentagon’s bloated budget to more manageable proportions and make America’s defense posture more efficient. As to the lost jobs in the military-industrial complex, The Chas will take that up in a future essay.
Just a thought.